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I 



THE DOOTEII^E 



OF 



The Freedom of the Will 



FICHTE'S PHILOSOPHY. 



BY 
JOHN FEANKLIN BEOWN, 

(I 

FORMERLY SCHOLAR AND FELLOW IN THE SAGE SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY, 
CORNELL UNIYERSITY. 



RICHMOND, IND.: 

31. CULLATON <fe CO., BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS. 

1900. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. — EXPOSITION. 

INTRODUCTORY. page 

The words * unity ' and ' freedom ' the key to Fichte's philosophy.. 1-2 

CHAPTER I. 
The Possibility of a System: of Philosophy. 
g 1.— Dogmatism and Idealism. 

One principle necessary as a basis of all philosophy, both theo- 
retical and practical 3 

Dogmatism 4 

Idealism 5 

Why choose Idealism? 6 

§ 2.— Fichte's Method. 

Deduction and proof in general 10 

Is the system absolutely proven ? 13 

CHAPTER II. 
Theoretical Philosophy. 

The problem of theoretical philosophy stated 15 

The/077?2 of consciousness reduced to the principle of consciousnes.s, 19 

The fundamental principle postulated 20 

The deduction 22 

Recapitulation 23 

CHAPTER Iir. 
Practical Philosophy. 
g 1.— Practical Philosophy in General. 

The problem of practical philosophy stated 27 

The nature of activity in theoretical sphere * 33 

The nature of activity in practical sphere 35 

Subjective activity and objective activity, the subjective Ego 
and the objective Ego identified with the free activity of 

the original Ego 38 

g 2.— Practical Philosophy in the Ethical Sphere. 

The problem stated ; the moral nature 42 

The subjective Ego 45 

The objective Ego and its relation to the subjective 47 

The sense of moral obligation and the moral impulse 49 

The relation between sense of obligation and freedom 51 

Will, the essence of the self 54 

The idea of necessity and of freedom 58 



IV CONTENTS. 

The Ego as fulfilling the concept of freedom. page 

(a) As freely self-determining 61 

(6) As producing being from thinking 66 

The theoretical sphere subordinate to the practical 68 

^B.—The Doctrine of Freedom in the Sittenlehre of 1812. 

A different point of view and a different use of old terms 69 

The Ego as free 74 

Summary 79 



PART II.— CRITICISM. 

THE DOCTRINE EXAMINED. 

Does Fichte advocate individual freedom ? 81 

The notion of freedom 83 

Psychological considerations. 

(a) The Ego as conscious activity 85 

(b) The Ego as something apart from consciousness 86 

(c) The Ego as a series of mental states 87 

{(i) The Ego as personality , .. 90 

Metaphysical considerations. 

(a) Is monism possible ? 91 

(b) Does Idealism follow from the disproof of Dogmatism? ... 92 

(c) Granting the truth of Idealism, is Fichte's conception of 

the relation of the finite to the Infinite such as to make 
possible both the freedom of the individual and the per- 
sonality of the Absolute? 93 

Ethical considerations. 

(a) The consciousness of free activity 96 

{b) The consciousness of moral worth and responsibility 97 

(c) The consciousness of supremacy over nature and necessity, 99 

(d) Belief in freedom a ' rational faith ' 100 

Summary 101 



PREFACE. 



This essay is a critical study of the doctrine of 
the freedom of the will, as found in Fichte's phi- 
losophy, and especially in his ethical treatises. In 
Part I. the attempt has been made to give a fair and 
just exposition of what Fichte really taught on the 
subject, and, in order that the exposition should be 
distorted as little as possible through misinterpreta- 
tion, exact quotations have been given wherever it 
seemed practicable to do so. Part II. is devoted to 
a critical examination of the validity of the doctrine 
as it is presented by Fichte. 

Fichte's own works are the basis of the essay, 
and the references are to Johann Gottlieb Fichte's 
S'dmmtliche Werke^ herausgegeben von J. H. Fichte. 
The name of the treatise quoted from, or referred 
to, has been stated in each case, in order that the 
significance of the quotation may be the better un- 
derstood. 

I am under special obligation to President J. G. 

Schurman for his encouragement, inspiration, and 

criticism given in the direction of the work ; and to 

Professor J. E. Creighton, under whose eflScient 

leadership my serious study of Fichte's philosophy 

was first undertaken. 

J. F. B. 



PART I.— EXPOSITION. 



INTRODUCTOKY. 

In the words '■ unity ' and ^ freedom ' is to be 
found the key to Fichte's entire philosophical sys- 
tem. To formulate a philosophy whose every part 
should radiate from a single, absolute principle, was 
the end to the attainment of which his keen con- 
structive intellect aspired. To vindicate the moral 
freedom of the individual was the imperative de- 
mand of his fervent ethical nature. To satisfy this 
demand of logical thought on the one hand, and of 
moral impulse on the other, is his constant eifort ; 
and, although he sometimes seems to lose himself in 
a bewildering maze of 'deductions' and 'proofs,' 
he invariably closes the discussion in hand with one 
or both of these ends consciously in view. It was 
the strength of his desire for a monistic system of 
thought, that led him while yet a theological stu- 
dent, to accept Spinozism, with its sweeping deter- 
minism, even though the longings of his moral nature 
cried out against it. It was the satisfaction of this 
hitherto unsatisfied longing that led him to rejoice 
so greatly in his discovery of the " new gospel " of 
the Kantian philosophy, which, in its underlying 
principles, was to satisfy both the logical demand 
for unity and the ethical longing for freedom. 

(1) 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Whether Fichte was really as successful as he 
himself thought he was, in constructing a system of 
philosophy that should contain a single, fundamen- 
tal principle, and, whether in this claim to unity in 
all his philosophical treatises, he was always con- 
sistent with himself, it is not within the province of 
this study to determine. We have only to show, as 
clearly as we may be able to do, what Fichte's doc- 
trine of freedom really was, and then to examine 
the tenability of the theory. This being our pur- 
pose, we shall introduce so much, and only so much 
of his metaphysical thought as may be helpful in 
the understanding of the subject in hand. We shall 
avoid, so far as possible, the peculiarly technical and 
difficult terminology of the author, and, where this 
is impossible, we shall try to translate this termin- 
ology into such other terms as, while they maj^ lay 
little claim to being transcendental, may yet lay some 
claim to being perspicuous. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE POSSIBILITY OF A SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY. 

For Fichte the first requirement of a system of 
philosophy is that it should be all of one piece. 
There must be one absolute, fundamental principle 
from which all other principles can be deduced, and 
by reference to which everything can be explained.^ 
If there be not one such principle, then, in the 
attempt to reach a resting place for thought, we 
either fall into an infinite regression, and no system 
is possible ; or, if there be more than one absolute 
principle, then there must be erected on them, not 
one system, but more than one, and the philosophi- 
cal aspiration for one system is still unsatisfied.^ The 
sensible world and the intelligible world, and the 
latter in both the theoretical and the practical sphere, 
must alike find their ground and explanation in one 
absolute fundamental principle. Kant forgot this 
fact, " for he nowhere treated the ground principle of 
all philosophy, but, in the Critique of Pure Reason^ 
only the theoretical, in which the categorical impera- 
tive could not be discussed ; and, in the Critique of 
Practical Reason^ only the practical, in which he had 

lUeber den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre, Werke I., 38-40. 
2Ibid,WerkeL, 52-54. 

2 (3) 



4 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy, 

to do merely with the content of consciousness, and 
the question as to its nature could not arise." ^ To 
find, then, the one, absolute, fundamental principle 
that shall explain the sensible and the intelligible, the 
theoretical and the practical alike, is the task of the 
philosopher.2 

There are in general two systems of philosophy, 
each of which claims to fulfill the conditions re- 
quired by philosophical thought and to explain all 
phenomena by reference to one absolute, fundamen- 
tal principle. The one of these systems Fichte calls 
Dogmatism or Dogmatic Kealism, the other, Ideal- 
ism.^ 

^' A system of speculative philosophy that would 
explain the idea ( Vorstellung) by positing the Non- 
Ego as cause of the idea, and the idea as eff*ect of 
the Non-Ego, so that the Non-Ego is the real ground 
of all, and is absolutely because it is and what it is, 
(Spinoza's necessity) ; and so that, moreover, the Ego 
is merely an accident of the Non-Ego and not sub- 
stance at all ; such a system is material Spinozism or 
Dogmatic Eealism."^ Dogmatism would explain the 
intelligible by the sensible, consciousness by the thing. 
The thing is the essence, the substance, consciousness 
an accident belonging to it. The thing is indepen- 
dent.^ The object that appears before the mind with 

1 Zweite Einleitung, Werke I., 472. 
2Ersce Einleitung, Werke I., 423, 

3 Grundlage, Werke I., 119, 120, note, 155 : Erste Einleitung, Werke I., 
426. 

4 Grundlage, Werke I., 155. 

5 Erste Einleitung, Werke I., 431, 433. 



DogmoMsra and Idealism, 5 

the feeling of necessity is to be regarded as a thing- 
in-itself, and is the ground of explanation of all con- 
sciousness and all experience.^ 

Idealism has a different object, that is, it puts 
forward a different ground for the explanation of 
experience. In the Ego, in consciousness — and criti- 
cal Idealism makes no pretense of going beyond the 
facts of consciousness, except by abstraction^ — there 
are always two factors present, viz. : the subjective 
and the objective. Dogmatism attempts to explain 
this duality in consciousness by referring the subjec- 
tive to the objective as thing-in-itself, for explana- 
tion. But Dogmatism does not satisfy the philosophic 
instinct of the idealist, hence the latter takes the 
only other road that is open, and attempts to ex- 
plain experience by referring the objective to the 
subjective. But what is the subjective? How does 
it manifest itself to us ? Can we form a conception 
of it such that the objective can be referred to it for 
explanation? Our fundamental conception of the 
subjective, as it appears to us in consciousness by 
means of an intellectual intuition (intellectualle An- 
schauimg)^ is that of a free activity. I act and I act 
as I choose, or. if I do not act, I remain passive by 
my own free choice. Of this activity or passivity I 
am directly conscious. No one can prove it to me, 
nor can I describe it to another, except in a merely 



lErste Einleitung, Werke I., 426-428, 430. 

2 Ibid, Werke I., 425; Sonnenklarer Bericht, Werke II., 333; Sitten- 
lehre of 1798, Werke IV., 16-17. 



6 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy, 

negative way. It is not a sensible but an intellec- 
tual intuition. I am directly conscious of myself, 
of the Ego as acting. The Ego exists only as it acts, 
or rather, only as activity.^ We cannot predicate ex- 
istence of it apart from activity .^ The essence of the 
Ego is activity.^ This is the one fundamental principle 
to which the idealist reduces all conscious experience. 
Instead of saying that our conscious experience is 
explainable through the thing-in-itself by means of 
the category of necessary mechanical causality, as 
the dogmatist claims, the idealist urges that all ex- 
perience can be explained only through the activity of 
the Ego by means of the category of free causality. 
Granted the assumptions of the dogmatist, the truth 
of his theory follows with logical necessity. Granted 
the assumption of the idealist, and the truth of his 
theory follows with equally logical necessity. Neither 
theory can be absolutely disproved by the other .^ 

How, then, shall we decide which system to 
choose? In Fichte's own words w^e give the answer: 
'' The kind of philosophy one chooses, depends upon 
the kind of a man one is ; for a philosophical system 
is not a dead piece of furniture to be rejected or ac- 
cepted as one pleases, but it is animated by the soul 
of the man who has it. One who is indolent by 
nature, or who has become so through mental slavery, 
learned luxury and vanity, will never rise to Ideal- 

1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., S8, 57. 

2 Erste Einleitung, Werke I., 440. 

3 Grundlage, Werke I., 97 ; Grundlage des Naturrechts, Werke III., 22. 
4 Erste Einleitung, Werke I., 429. 



Dogmatism and Idealism, 7 

ism/' 1 This statement must not be interpreted to 
mean that Fichte thinks there is no theoretical 
ground for preferring one system to the other. In 
the quotation just given, and in other statements 
bearing a similar import,^ there is perceptible a deli- 
cate touch of irony, and a quiet contempt for the 
thinker who can so far overlook the facts of common 
consciousness as to be able to admit the assumptions 
of the dogmatic school. For his own mind a mere 
statement of these required assumptions is sufficient 
refutation of the system. But, nevertheless, he pro- 
ceeds to give cogent theoretical reasons why dog- 
matism is not satisfactory, which reasons may be 
briefly stated as follows. 

Dogmatism does not afford a satisfactory expla- 
nation of the phenomena of consciousness. Its 
ground of explanation is the thing-in-itself, mere 
being, working through the concept of mechanical 
causality. But this will not do, in the first place, 
because the thing-in-itself is a chimera, and we can 
form no conception of it.^ What could mere being 
mean without some consciousness for which it exists?^ 
By hypothesis it has no consciousness in itself, and, 
if we do away with consciousness apart from the 
thing, as the theory requires, we have left mere being 
without consciousness. Such a conception is not 
only unmeaning, but impossible to creatures consti- 

lErste Einleitung, Werke I., 434. 
2 Ibid, Werke I., 432-433, 443-444. 
3 Ibid, Werke I., 431. 
^Sittenlehreof 1798, Werke IV., 17. 



8 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy, 

tuted as we are.^ This objection alone is sufficient 
to overthrow the whole system of Dogmatism.^ But 
there is yet another objection to the theory. If we 
grant for the sake of the argument the possibility 
of the conception just referred to, it can never ac- 
count for the facts of consciousness, representation, 
ideas, the Ego. G-iven the thing-in-itself, mere be- 
ing, being without consciousness of being; required, 
all the facts of conscious experience. This same 
thing-in-itself, acting through the category of neces- 
sary causality, is to produce representation, the Ego, 
being and consciousness of being in one.^ But being 
as an ultimate, can not, through the category of 
causality, produce that which it does not itself con- 
tain. At most it can only produce more being.* It 
can not produce both being and consciousness of be- 
ing, and this is just what is required. How, then, 
are we to bridge the chasm between being as the 
ultimate principle, and consciousness, which is a fact 
of common experience?^ Clearly the second objec- 
tion is also valid and the theory fails. A complete 
dogmatism destroys itself since it destroys the pos- 
sibility of consciousness.^ 

There is a third argument, a practical one, in 
favor of Idealism and against Dogmatism, viz.: the 
fact that freedom must be guaranteed to the indi- 



iSittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 30. 

2Erste Einleitung, Werke I., 431. 

3Ibid, Werke I., 435-436. 

4Ibid, Werkel., 486. 

5 Ibid, Werke I., 431, 437-438. 

sGrundlage, Werke I., 120. 



Dogmatism and Idealism. 9 

vidual in order that he may maintain his dignity as 
a man, and that the deepest longings of his moral 
nature may be satisfied ; and this, Dogmatism does 
not accomplish. Even if the theoretical arguments 
for the two systems were absolutely equal, this prac- 
tical demand of the moral nature must turn the 
balance in favor of Idealism. ^ 

Dogmatism can satisfy only those who think 
everything explainable through the category of caus- 
ality, a causality that is mechanical and necessary .^ 
In the mind of such a thinker, there can be no con- 
ception of freedom as real.^ "Every logical dog- 
matist is necessarily a fatalist. He does not deny 
the fact of consciousness that we regard ourselves as 
free, but he jDroves from his principle the falseness 
of the testimony."^ He must regard the facts of 
consciousness as phenomena differing not in kind, 
but only in degree from the thing-in-itself, which he 
makes the ground of explanation of all experience.^ 
Nevertheless we must accept this theory of Dog- 
matism, with all the concessions which it demands, 
unless we can find a way of escape by postulating 
the freedom and self-dependence of the Ego. The 
idealist makes this postulate, the dogmatist denies it. 
So far apart are they at the beginning, and, granted 
the fundamental assumptions of either system, there 

1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 53-54. 
2Erste Einleitung, Werke I., 437-439. 
3 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 136. 

4 Erste Einleitung, Werke I., 430. 

5 Ibid, Werke I., 437; Die Thatsachen des Bewusstseyns, Werke II., 
623-624. 



10 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte's Philosophy. 

is no transition from one to the other. But for 
Pichte there is no such thing as sacrificing the inde- 
pendence of the Ego to that of the thing-in-itself, and 
he becomes the outspoken advocate of Idealism.^ 

So far we have followed the line of approach to 
Fichte's own philosophical camp. We have found 
that the unity of the system and the freedom of the in- 
dividual are two ideas which he keeps constantly in 
view ; that the principle of unity is to be found in 
each of two proposed systems, Dogmatism and Ideal- 
ism, and, granted the fundamental assumptions un- 
derlying these systems, neither of them can, by any 
possible means, be refuted by the advocates of the 
opposing system ; and, lastly, we have seen that, for 
both theoretical and practical reasons, Fichte clings 
to Idealism. Before entering our leader's camp, it 
will be necessary to consider briefly the method of 
the Fichtean philosophy. 

For Fichte the task of all philosophy is 'Ho give 
the ground of all experience. "^ This explanation, if 
it is to be had at all, will be found in a coherent sys- 
tem of thought, based on a single, unproved and 
unprovable, absolute, fundamental principle.^ In so 
far as this absolute principle can not be proved, it may 
be said that the system as a whole can not be proved, 
since every step in the system is dependent for its 
certainty upon this ground principle.^ But, unless 

1 Erste Einleituug, Werke I., 432; Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 54. 

aibid, Werkel.,423. 

3Grundlage, Werke I., 47, 48, 52, 60. 

*Ibid. Werkel., 43. 



Fichte^s Method. 11 

the validity of thought is to be destroyed altogether, 
it must have a starting point in some accepted though 
unproved proposition. Fichte takes as this starting- 
point a principle which, he says, needs not the proof 
that is denied to it, for it appears as a direct fact of 
experience in every consciousness, as a fact which no 
one will deny.^ It is the most fundamental, the 
most incontrovertible fact of all consciousness. By 
hypothesis now this ground principle is the one ab- 
solute principle upon which the only true system of 
philosophy can be founded. The validity of this 
principle, as a fact of experience^ needs no proof, for 
it appears directly in all consciousness. But its val- 
idity, as ground principle of a system of philosophy^ 
does need proof, and this proof can be found only in 
the fact that a satisfactory system of philosophy is 
actually constructed on it as ground principle thereof. 
That a system of thought is possible at all, can only 
be proved by the actual construction of such a sys- 
tem, and that the principle which we have submitted 
by hypothesis as the ground principle of all philos- 
ophy, is the correct one, we can know only when it is 
proved such by the actual construction of such sys- 
tem of philosophy upon such ground principle. In 
so far, then, as the ground principle of all philosophy 
is unproved and unprovable, it may be said that the 
system of philosophy erected on such ground prin- 
ciple, can not be proved true. On the other hand, 
accepting such principle as true in itself, regardless 

1 Grundlage, Werke I., 95. 



12 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichtes Philosophy. 

of its relation to philosophy, the system of philos- 
ophy erected on it is absolutely proven, and it, in 
turn, is absolutely proven to be the ground principle 
of all philosophy when a satisfactory system of phil- 
osophy is actually erected upon it. 

What, now, must a system of philosophy do, and 
how shall we know when it is satisfactory ? Phil- 
osophy is to explain experience, and it is satisfactory 
as a system when every fact of experience, regarded 
as a conditioned fact, can be traced back through all 
intermediate conditioned and conditioning facts, to 
the first principle as the unconditioned, upon which 
all conditioned facts of experience must ultimately 
depend ; and if, in reverse order, starting from the 
ground principle, every fact of possible conscious 
experience can be either deduced, or both deduced 
and proven from it. Starting from any fact of com- 
mon experience, we trace it back to the most funda- 
mental principle in common consciousness, which 
principle we postulate as the ground principle of all 
philosophy .1 Moving now from this principle, and 
with absolutely no reference to the facts of experience, 
we arrive, by means of a series of deductions and 
proofs, at a state of things corresponding exactly to 
our actual experience. Every fact of experience is 
included in our deduction, which was made with no 
reference to the facts of experience. We have gone 
from experience, the conditioned, to the ground prin- 
ciple, the unconditioned, and then, having reversed 

1 Grundlage, Werke I., 92. 



Fichte's Method. 13 

the order of procedure, we have gone from the ground 
principle by means of a series of deductions and 
proofs, back to experience. If such a course of 
thought is possible, then it forms a satisfactory sys- 
tem of philosophy, for it explains all experience. 
Now, such a course of thought is possible, for we have 
actually accomplished it, hence our postulated first 
principle is proven to be the real first principle, and 
the system of philosophy erected thereon is proven 
to be the correct philosophy. 

But, although Pichte, in many passages, thus urges 
the demonstrated correctness of his system as a 
whole, he nevertheless asserts very definitely else- 
where, that it can never be completely proven in 
detail, but that, at most, it is only probably correct. 
True, the probability of its correctness may be, and 
indeed is, very great, and one who doubts the cor- 
rectness of the system " may well be required to 
show the error in our conclusions ; but it will never 
do to lay claim to infallibility." ^ The system as a 
whole, and the general principles of it may be cor- 
rect, and yet the details of it may be wrong. Cor- 
rect general results may be obtained by means of 
counter-balancing mistakes, as, for example, the sum 
of a series of numbers may be correct, while, in the 
process of adding, two or more mistakes, counter- 
balancing one another, may have been made ; or, the 
correct sum may have been obtained by chance. 
The system of the human mind, of which the Wis- 

1 Grundlage, Werke I., 76. 



14 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy. 

senschaftslehre professes to be an exposition or a 
representation, is undoubtedly correct, and, if our 
philosophy be a correct representation of this, then 
it, too, is correct. But this is the very point in ques- 
tion, and of it we can never be certain.^ Pichte's 
real view concerning the validity of his system seems 
to be that he regarded it as completely proven in its 
main outlines, negatively by the clear insufficiency 
of the only other possible system, and positively by 
the fact that, so far as worked out, his own system 
does afford a satisfactory explanation of all exper- 
ience. But he does not, on theoretical grounds, 
claim more than a high degree of probability for it 
in its details. 



1 Ueber den Begriff der Wissenscbaftslehre, Werkel., 75-77. 



CHAPTER II. 



THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY. 

Turning now to Pichte's own philosophical dis- 
cussions, it is well to begin with a brief presentation 
of the method and principles of the Wissenschafts- 
lehre, since this is the best known of his speculative 
works, and forms the basis for all his philosophy. An 
examination of this treatise here will enable us to 
see later how his doctrine of freedom is related to the 
fundamental principles of his theoretical philosophy. 

We already have before us Pichte's criticism of 
the dogmatic school for going beyond conscious ex- 
perience to the thing-in-itself for the explanation of 
experience.^ A thing-in-itself, being without con- 
sciousness of being, either within or without itself, 
is a meaningless, and, indeed, an impossible concep- 
tion for beings constituted like ourselves. If it exists 
at all, it must lie beyond the pale of all experience, 
and it can never enter as a factor in the explanation 
of experience. '' A finite, rational being has nothing 
outside of experience ; it is this that encloses the en- 
tire material of his thinking. The philosopher stands 
necessarily under the same conditions ; it, therefore, 
seems incomprehensible how he can raise himself 

1 Zweite Einleitung, Werke I., 482-483. 
(15) 



16 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy. 

above experience." ^ ^^ I herewith declare it to be 
the innermost spirit and soul of my philosophy that 
man has in general nothing but experience, and he 
attains all that he dies attain only through exper- 
ience, through life itself. All his thinking, whether 
it be loose or scientific, common or transcendental, 
proceeds from experience, and has experience in view 
again." 2 By experience, Fichte does not mean all 
conscious states, but only those accompanied by the 
feeling of necessity.^ Beyond consciousness we can 
not go except by abstraction. Philosophy, then, is 
to give the ground of explanation of that which ap- 
pears to us in consciousness, accompanied by the 
feeling of necessity. We must, accordingly, look 
within and see what consciousness really gives us. 

The first words of the JErste Einleitung^ which was 
written to explain more fully the principles of the 
Wissenschaftslehre^ are these : ^' Attend to thyself; 
turn thy gaze from all that surrounds thee and into 
thy own consciousness (^dein Inner es), is the first 
command that philosophy gives to its learner. It 
considers nothing that is outside of thee, but only 
thee thyself."* What, now, does this inward gaze 
disclose ? It reveals, in every act of consciousness, 
a knowing and a known. I can be conscious of ab- 
solutely nothing without recognizing these two ele- 
ments, myself as the subjective, the knower, and 

1 Erste Einleitung, Werke I., 425. 

2 Sonnenklarer Bericht, Werke II., 333. 

3 Erste Einleitung, Werke I., 423. 

4 Werke I, 422. 



Theoretical Philosophy, 17 

something else as the objective, the thing known. 
We may regard these various conscious states as so 
many determinations of consciousness, in which the 
two factors, the knowing and the known, always ap- 
pear. A careful comparison of these various deter- 
minations of consciousness, or ideas, as we may call 
them, reveals a marked difference between them. 
Some appear and disappear at our pleasure. We will 
their presence, and they are with us. We will their 
absence, and they are gone. Others force themselves 
on us, with a feeling of necessity, and we can not 
escape them. They are present with us, we know 
not how. They appear as a ^ given ' something in 
consciousness, for whose presence we are in no way 
responsible. Not only do these ideas appear neces- 
sarily, but they appear to be just such as they are, 
and no other, necessarily. We have, then, in con- 
sciousness, two distinct kinds of ideas, the one, ap- 
parently, the product of our own freedom, the other, 
appearing as a ' given ' something, and forcing 
themselves upon us with the feeling of necessity. 

'' It would be irrational to ask the question why 
those ideas that are dependent on freedom are de- 
termined just so and not otherwise; for, since it is 
posited that they are determined freely, all applica- 
bility of the notion of ground is taken away. They 
are so because I have so determined them, and, had 
I determined them otherwise, they would have been 
different. 

^'But, it is undoubtedly a question worthy of con- 



18 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy. 

sideralion, what is the ground of the system of ideas 
accompanied by the feeling of necessity, and what 
the ground of this feeling of necessity itself. To 
answer this question is the task of philosophy, and, 
there is, according to my thinking, no philosophy, ex- 
cept Die Wissenschaftslehre which accomplishes the 
task. The system of ideas accompanied by the feel- 
ing of necessity, is also called experience, internal as 
well as external. Philosophy has, accordingly, as I 
may say in other words, to explain the ground of all 
experience." 1 To determine the ground of these 
ideas, these determinations of consciousness that are 
accompanied by the feeling of necessity, is the task 
of philosophy. 

Let us again reconnoitre and see just what point 
we have reached, and how we have reached it. 
It is the task of philosophy to explain experience. 
Experience includes all that appears necessarily in 
consciousness and nothing more. In every conscious- 
ness there are the subjective and the objective, the 
knowing and the known. The known, or ideas, ap- 
pear now as products of our own freedom, now as a 
^ given ' forced upon us by necessity. It is irra- 
tional to ask why those ideas, which are produced 
by our own freedom, are just as they are, but we 
must inquire into the nature of those ideas which 
are accompanied by the feeling of necessity. The 
Ego, the subjective, stands opposed to the Non-Ego, 
the objective, in every consciousness. This Non- 

1 Erste Einleitung, Werke I., 423. 



Theoretical Philosophy, 19 

Ego appears as dead matter ( Stoff), without activity, 
as opposed to the conscious activity of the Ego. 
How, now, are we to explain this duality in con- 
sciousness ? How can the objective become the sub- 
jective, or the subjective the objective? This is our 
problem. 

As the case now stands, two distinct and opposed 
elements appear in consciousness. Philosophical 
thought requires that they shall be reduced to one, 
either by referring both to a third something differ- 
ent from either, or, by referring the one to the other, 
thus making them identical and asserting that they 
are really one. We are left with these two alterna- 
tives, and we must choose between them if we are 
to explain consciousness at all. If we take the 
former alternative, we imply the existence of a third 
something, different from either, existing beyond 
consciousness. But of what exists beyond conscious- 
ness we can know nothing, not even its existence. 
Hence such a third something can not serve as the 
solvent of the duality within consciousness. We are 
driven, then, to take the other alternative, and to say 
that the objective and the subjective in consciousness 
are ultimately one. Though always appearing in 
consciousness as separate and opposed, they must be 
thought as one, seen from different points of view. 
This implies a deception and requires further explan- 
ation. Either the subjective must be the same as 
the objective, and hence itself deceptive in appear- 
ance, or the objective must be the same as the sub- 

3 



20 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy, 

jective, and therefore itself deceptive in appearance. 
In other words, the subjective and the objective, the 
Ego and the Non-Ego, are one. But which one? 
The Non-Ego appears as stuff, inert matter, mere 
being without consciousness of being. Can the Ego 
be explained by identifying it with the Non-Ego? 
No, for the Ego implies not only being but conscious- 
ness of being as well, and to explain being and con- 
sciousness of being in one, from mere being, would 
be to explain the higher category from the lower. 
We are driven, then, to the other alternative; and 
instead of saying the Ego is the Non-Ego, that is, 
consciousness is matter, we say the Non-Ego is the 
Ego, that is, matter is activity; for activity is the 
only form in which intellectual intuition ever reveals 
to us the nature of the Ego.^ The necessary sepa- 
ration of subjective and objective, of Ego and Non- 
Ego, in consciousness, is called the form of con- 
sciousness, their necessary union in thought is called 
the principle of consciousness. 

We have now explained the duality in conscious- 
ness by saying that the subjective and the objective 
are one, and that one the Ego. But the duality in 
consciousness remains, nevertheless, and hence we are 
compelled to posit the existence of a divisible Ego 
which manifests itself now as the finite Ego, and 
now as the Non-Ego. This divisible is the Absolute 
Ego which is pure, free, unrestrained activity. 

In Pichtean phrase the results thus far obtained 

1 Zweite Einleitung, Werke I., 462, 463, 466, 467. 



Theoretical Philosophy. 21 

are expressed as follows : The reflection of the Ego 
upon itself, that is, the recognition of itself by the 
Ego in consciousness, means, the Ego posits itself.^ 
The recognition of the objective in consciousness 
means, the Ego posits the Non-Ego.^ And the post- 
ulating of the Ego and the Non-Ego, the subjective 
and the objective, in consciousness, as one, means, 
the Ego opposits in itself a divisible Non-Ego to a 
divisible Ego.^ 

We have now reached the most fundamental fact 
in all conciousness, viz., that the Ego posits itself. 
Expressed in different phrase this means, the Ego 
discovers itself in consciousness, the Ego reflects 
upon itself as real, the Ego is free activity, and it 
becomes for itself by virtue of this activity. We 
are to postulate this fact as the absolute, fundamental 
principle of all philosophy, and we are to prove its 
validity as such by the erection of a system of philos- 
ophy upon it. We have by reflection discovered in 
the common consciousness, in the realm of experi- 
ence, this principle by means of which we hope to 
exf)lain all experience, but we can only be sure of 
its validity for this purpose when we shall have 
deduced all experience from it as fundamental prin- 
ciple, and that, too, without any reference to the 
facts of experience in the deduction. If from this 
principle of free activity which manifests itself 
directly in the reflecting consciousness, we shall be 



1 Grundlage, Werke L, 98. 

2 Ibid, Werke I., 104. 
3It)id, Werkel.,109. 



22 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy, 

able to deduce all experience, we shall then have 
proven from this fact, the validity of our principle 
and the correctness of our system. Now to the 
deduction. 

Given, the Ego, that is, pure, free, unrestrained 
activity; required, experience, that is, the objective 
and the subjective in consciousness. Now, unre- 
strained activity could never result in consciousness 
at all, for the essence of the latter is the appearance 
of a subjective and an objective opposed to each 
other, a checking of the activity of the Ego by a 
something, the Non-Ego, set over against it. Hence 
in order that the Ego, that is, this pure, free, unre- 
strained activity, may result in consciousness, it 
must turn some of its activity against itself, against 
its own original activity ; that is, it must posit the 
Non-Ego. In discovering this fact, and that, too, 
without any reference to experience, we have de- 
duced the existence of the Non-Ego, that is, of the 
objective world as it actually and necessarily appears 
in all consciousness. 

In a similar way we may deduce the third funda- 
mental principle; viz., the Ego opposits in itself a 
divisible Non-Ego to a divisible Ego. Starting with 
pure, free, unrestrained activity, we found that in 
order to produce consciousness, this activity must be 
checked, and since activity is all there is, the only 
way in which this can be accomplished is by turning 
part of this activity against itself. We have, then, 
activity against activity. If the two activities are 



Theoretical Philosophy. 23 

equal, they counteract each other and we have noth- 
ing left. If the one prevails entirely over the other, 
that other disappears and we have left again, pure, 
unrestrained activity. It must be, then, if we are 
to have any result, that the activity of the one must 
partly prevail and partly not prevail over the activ- 
ity of the other. Hence our third fundamental 
principle; viz., the Ego opposits in itself a divisible 
Non-Ego to a divisible Ego. 

We have now deduced experience in general 
from our fundamental principle of pure activity. 
We have found this activity manifesting itself in 
consciousness in the two forms of subjective and 
objective, Ego and Non-Ego. But these two activ- 
ities, — two in appearance, one manifesting itself in 
two forms in reality, — seem to bear different relations 
to each other in different states of consciousness. 
In the act of mere knowing of the Non-Ego by the 
Ego, the latter is apparently almost passive, while 
the former forces itself upon the Ego. In Fichtean 
phrase, "the Non-Ego determines the Ego." To 
explain how this comes about, how the objective 
becomes the subjective, is the task of theoretical 
philosophy. In the act of mere willing on the other 
hand, the Ego appears as essentially active while the 
Non-Ego in its particular determinations, appears 
as the product of this free activity of the Ego, or 
again in Fichtean phrase, "the Ego determines the 
Non-Ego." 1 How this can be, how the objective can 

1 Grundlage, Werke I., 125-126. 



24 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy, 

follow from the subjective, how from the idea or 
notion of a certain act, the act itself can be produced, 
it is the task of practical philosophy to explain. 

Once more, and finally, let us summarize this 
somewhat voluminous introduction. Philosophy must 
be a unit, all of one piece. It must stand upon one 
absolute, unprovable proposition. By hypothesis, 
this principle is the most fundamental fact of all 
consciousness. Its validity, as first principle, and the 
correctness of the philosophy to be erected upon it, 
can only be proven by the actual erection of such 
philosophy upon such principle. If every condi- 
tioned fact of experience can be finally reduced to 
this ground principle as the ultimate unconditioned, 
and if, in turn, every fact of experience can be de- 
duced from this unconditioned first principle, the 
deduction to be made without reference to experience, 
the principle is proven valid and the system correct. 

There is no thing-in-itself. Such a conception is 
a chimera, and of no value in philosophy. In all 
consciousness, there appear the subjective and the 
objective, the Ego and the Non-Ego, the representing 
and the represented. Some of these determinations 
of consciousness, or ideas, as we call them, appear 
as products of our own free will and effort. Others 
appear without our conscious effort, and force them- 
selves upon us with a feeling of necessity. To at- 
tempt to explain the ideas that are the products of 
freedom, would be irrational, for freedom is itself an 
ultimate conception. The ideas accompanied by the 



Theoretical Philosophy. 25 

feeling of necessity are called experience, and to ex- 
plain experience is the task of philosophy. 

The Wissenschaftslehre is the basal treatise of the 
Fichtean system. It treats of theoretical philosophy, 
or the theory of knowledge, and of practical phil- 
osophy in general. In all consciousness appear two 
factors, the Ego and the Non-Ego. Thought de- 
mands that there be but one ultimate reality. Hence, 
the Ego and the Non-Ego must be one. But which 
one ? The Ego can not be reduced to the Non-Ego, 
for activity, the essence of the Ego, manifesting itself 
as consciousness, is a higher conception that mere 
matter, the apparent essence of the Non-Ego. Hence, 
the Non-Ego must be the Ego, that is, the Ego and 
the Non-Ego are one, and that one the Ego, the es- 
sence of which is free activity. Our ultimate, then, 
is free activity, which manifests itself in conscious- 
ness in the two forms, the subjective and the objec- 
tive, the Ego and the Non-Ego. In the mere act of 
knowing, of which theoretical philosophy treats, the 
activity of the Non-Ego appears to determine that 
of the Ego. In the act of willing, of which practi- 
cal philosophy treats, the activity of the Ego de- 
termines that of the Non-Ego. We now pass to the 
consideration of this practical philosophy, at the cen- 
ter of which we shall find the doctrine of freedom. 



CHAPTER III. 



PEAOTIOAL PHILOSOPHY. 

The introduction to the Sittenlehre of 1798 gives, 
in clear, compact form, a brief outline of "practical 
philosophy in general,"^ together with its relation 
to the principles of theoretical philosophy. In the 
opening paragraph of this introduction, Fichte re- 
states the purpose of theoretical philosophy, that 
"the task of all philosophy" is to show " how an 
objective can become a subjective, a being-for-itself, 
a represented being; " and, he adds, that " no one will 
ever explain [this] who does not find a point in which 
the objective and the subjective in general are not 
different, but wholly one. Now, our system repre- 
sents such a principle, and proceeds from it. Self- 
hood {die Ichheit), intelligence, reason, or whatever 
one may wish to call it, is this point." ^ 

" The Sittenlehre is practical philosophy. Just as 
theoretical philosophy has to represent the system 
of necessary thinking so that our ideas agree with 
a being, so has practical philosophy to exhaust the 

1 Fichte makes no sharp distinction between practical philosophy 
in general and practical philosophy in the distinctly ethical sphere, but 
savs the moral law is applicable to all •* real actions of an intelligent be- 
ing." His method of treatment suggests such a division, however, and 
we retain it for the sake of the method. 

8 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 1. 
(27) 



28 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fickle' s Philosophy, 

system of necessary thinking, so that a being shall 
agree with our ideas and follow from them. It 
comes within our province, then, to raise the ques- 
tion last suggested, and to show, first, how we, in 
general, come to regard some of our ideas as the 
ground of being [that is, to discuss voluntary action 
in general], and secondly, to show whence especially 
the system of those notions arises from which a be- 
ing must follow with absolute necessity, [that is, to 
discuss distinctively moral actions].^ 

^^ I find myself acting in the sense world. With 
this fact all consciousness arises; without this con- 
sciousness of my activity, there is no self-conscious- 
ness, without it no consciousness of anything that is 
not myself." 2 To this fact consciousness testifies 
directly. What manifold is contained in this idea of 
my activity (Wirksamkeit), and how do I reach it? 

^' One might at first suppose that the idea of mat- 
ter ( Staff) co-existing with my activity and abso- 
lutely not to be changed by it, the idea of the prop- 
erties of this matter, which are changed through my 
activity, and the idea of this progressing change until 
the form arises which I purpose ; that all these ideas 
contained in the notion of my activity, are given 
from without, which expression I certainly do not 
understand ; that it is experience^ or, whatever you 
may call this nonsense (Nichtgedanken) ; but there 
still lies something within the idea of my activity, 



1 Sittenlelire of 1798, Werke IV., 2. 
2 Ibid, Werke IV., 3 ; see also IV., 20. 



Practical Philosophy in General, 29 

which absolutely can not come from without, but 
which must lie within me ; which I can not exper- 
ience, but must know directly, namely, this, that 1 
myself am to be the last ground of the change that is 
occurring. 

'■^ I am the ground of this change, means that 
that and no other which knows concerning this 
change is also the acting ; the subject of conscious- 
ness and the principle of activity are one. What I 
say at the beginning of all knowing concerning the 
subject of knowing, what I know by means of the 
fact that I know in general, that I can have derived 
from no other knowledge, I posit it directly. 

'' Accordingly, so far as I only know in general, 
I know that I am active. In the mere form of know- 
ing in general is contained the consciousness of my- 
self, and of myself as something active, and this fact 
is thereby posited directly." ^ We have in the above 
statement a clear identification of the activity of the 
Ego, in knowing, with the activity of the self in act- 
ing upon the world. The phenomenon to be ex- 
plained in practical philosophy is the fact that we 
find ourselves acting on the material world. The 
hypothesis, by means of which it is to be explained, 
is the same as that which we have found to be the 
fundamental principle of theoretical philosophy, viz. : 
the free activity of the Ego, of which we are directly 
conscious. 
» We saw in theoretical philosophy that, according 



1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 3-4 ; see also IV., 20, 88. 



30 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichteh Philosophy, 

to the /orm of consciousness, the subjective and the 
objective must necessarily be separate and opposed 
to each other, while, according to the principle of 
consciousness, they must necessarily be thought as 
one. ^'In order to be able to say 7, I am compelled 
to separate them ; but solely from the fact that I do 
say this, and, while I say it, does the separation oc- 
cur. The one which is separated, which accordingly 
underlies all consciousness, and, in consequence of 
which, the subjective and objective in consciousness 
are posited directly as one, is absolutely equal to X, 
and it can, as simple, in no way come into conscious- 
ness." ^ 

Having thus, through reflection and abstraction, 
identified the subjective and the objective, which ap- 
pear in the knowing consciousness, we need no longer 
regard the objective as something 'given' from 
without. We have also, as a direct fact of experience, 
identified the activity of the knowing consciousness 
with the activity of the self in acting upon the sense 
world, that is to say with the activity of the willing 
consciousness. If, now, we could in some way come 
to regard physical activity, activity in the sense 
world, activity of the Ego objectively regarded, as 
one with the activity of the Ego subjectively re- 
garded, which produces such objective activity — the 
two activities being the same in essence, but looked 
at from different points of view — we would no longer 
need to regard matter with its properties and the 

1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 5. 



Practical Philosophy in General, 31 

changes in them, as something given from without. 
The occasion for such a supposition would be gone, 
for we might then regard them as one with the know- 
ing, willing self. We would have solved the problem 
of practical philosophy according to the principle of 
the Wissenschaftslehre. We would see not only how 
the subjective follows from the objective, but also 
how the objective follows from the subjective, and we 
would have found the ultimate ground of explana- 
tion in both cases to be the pure, free, unrestrained 
activity of the Ego.^ ^' The presupposition is that 
[the idea of our activity] is contained in conscious- 
ness in general, and is necessarily posited with it. 
Hence, we proceed from the form of consciousness in 
general, start from it, and our inquiry is completed if 
we come back again in the course of our deduction 
to the idea of our sensibile activity." ^ 

Let us restate the problem in other words. In 
theoretical philosophy we found that the subjective 
and the objective appear in every consciousness. 
They are absolutely inseparable and necessary. But, 
although they are thus inseparable and necessary in 
consciousness^ a correct philosophy requires that they 
be thought as one, and that one the subjective, the 
Ego. In practical philosophy, also, we find both sub- 
jective and objective. There is the conscious activity 
of the self in the act of willing and the consequent 
physical activity in the material world. Following 



1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 5-6. 
2Ibid, WerkelV., 4. 



32 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy. 

our natural impulse toward unity of thought, and 
proceeding according to the principles of the Wis- 
senschaftslehre^ our problem is, first, to think will 
and matter as one, as different manifestations of one 
and the same essence ; and, second, to identify this 
essence with the pure, free, unrestrained activity 
which we found to be the ultimate principle in all 
theoretical philosophy, that is, in the knowing con- 
sciousness. If we succeed in doing this, we shall 
have explained the duality in consciousness, how the 
subjective follows from the objective and the objective 
from the subjective, and we shall have explained all 
experience in both theoretical and practical spheres 
by reference to one absolute, fundamental principle, 
the free activity of the Ego. As formerly, in the 
sphere of theoretical philosophy , so now, in the solu- 
tion of our present problem, we start from the form 
of consciousness, that is, from the necessary separa- 
tion of the subjective and the objective, and we shall 
have solved our problem when we can think them 
as one, and that one the free activity of the Ego. 

Having thus stated in brief outline the problem 
of practical philosophy, its relation to the principles 
of theoretical philosophy, and the proposed line of 
treatment, we proceed to a fuller statement of the 
facts to be explained. 

We have seen that in the sphere of theoretical 
philosophy the Ego is determined by the Non-Ego, 
while in the sphere of practical philosophy the Ego 
determines the Non-Ego. It is worth while to ex- 



Practical Philosophy in General. 33 

amine at some length the nature of this activity 
of the Ego, which, in the one case, is determined by, 
and in the other case determines, the Non-Ego; and 
first, let us consider it as determined by the Non-Ego. 

To posit the Ego as active in the theoretical sphere 
does not mean that one ascribes to himself activity 
in general, but only a determined activity, just such 
and no other. "The subjective is, as we have seen, 
through its mere separation, quite dependent on the 
objective and constrained throughout; and the 
ground of this its material determination, of its de- 
termination in reference to the what^ lies in no way 
in it, but in the objective. The subjective appears 
as a mere recognition of something present before it, 
by no means and in no way as an active producing 
of the idea. So it must necessarily be at the origin 
of all consciousness where the separation of the sub- 
jective and the objective is complete. In the progress 
of consciousness, by means of a synthesis, the subjec- 
tive also appears as free and determining, since it ap- 
pears as abstracting ; and then it is not able to per- 
ceive activity in general, as such, but yet it can freely 
represent it. But here we stand at the origin of all 
consciousness, and the idea to be sought is, therefore, 
necessarily a perception, that is, the subjective ap- 
pears in it as determined wholly and completely and 
without its own interference." ^ 

But what do we mean by a determined activity, 
and how can it come about ? It is activity in a cer- 

1 Loc. cit. Werke IV., 6. 



34 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte's Philosophy, 

tain direction, determined by a certain opposition. 
Hence, in order that there can be a determined ac- 
tivity, there must be an object, a something opposed, 
which determines the direction of the activity. 
^' This opposition is represented as the opposite of 
activity, hence as something which only exists, which 
lies quiet and dead, which merely ^s, but in no way 
acts^ which only strives to exist; and therefore, un- 
doubtedly, with a measure of power to remain what 
it is, it resists the working of freedom on its own 
ground, but is never able to touch freedom in free- 
dom's sphere ; in short, it is represented as mere ob- 
jectivity. It is sometimes called by a peculiarly 
proper name, matter (^Stoff). ^ ^ ^ The idea 
of a material substance absolutely not to be changed 
through my activity, which we found contained in 
the perception of our activity, is deduced from the 
laws of consciousness.^ 

'^ Further, all consciousness is conditioned through 
the consciousness of myself, this is conditioned 
through the perception of my activity, and this 
through the positing of a resistance as such. There- 
fore, resistance of the character just given extends 
necessarily through the whole sphere of my con- 
sciousness ; it co-exists with consciousness, and free- 
dom can never be posited as prevailing the least over 
it, because if it did so prevail, freedom itself and all 
consciousness and all being would vanish." 



iLoc. cit. WerkeIV.,7-8. 



Practical Philosophy in General, 35 

In this conception of the activity of the Ego as 
determined by an opposition, a something opposed, 
we have found a solution of the problem of theo- 
retical philosophy, viz. : how the subjective follows 
from the objective. 

What is it to be active^ and what do I mean when 
I ascribe to myself activity in the sphere of practical 
philosophy? 

'' The picture of activity in general, of agility, of 
motion, or however one may call it in words, is pre- 
supposed with the reader, and it can be demonstrated 
to no one who does not find it in the intuition of 
himself. This inner agility can absolutely not be 
ascribed to the objective as such, as we have seen ; 
the latter only exists and remains as it is. Only to 
the subjective, to the intelligence as such, does it be- 
long according to the form of its activity. Accord- 
ing to the form, I say ; for the material of the de- 
termination, is, as we have before seen, to be deter- 
mined in an other relation through the objective. 
The representing (das Vorstellen,) according to its 
form, is intuited as freest inner motion. Now, shall 
7, the one indivisible Ego, be active ; and that which 
works on the object, is without doubt the real objec- 
tive power within me. All this considered, my 
activity can only be so posited that it proceeds from 
the subjective as determining the objective ; in short, 
as a causality of the mere concept upon the objective, 
which concept can not be again determined through 



36 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte's Philosophy. 

another objective, but is determined absolutely in and 
through itself." 1 

In this causality of the concept on the sensible 
world, in the production by means of a concept or 
idea, of sensible activity corresponding to it, we have 
the answer to our question how the objective is to 
follow from the subjective, a being from a concept; 
and thereby is derived the principle of all practical 
philosophy. ^' Absolute activity is the one predicate 
belonging to me absolutely and immediately. Caus- 
ality through the concept, is a representation of con- 
sciousness, which is rendered necessary by the laws 
of consciousness, and which is the only possible rep- 
resentation thereof [that is, of absolute activity]. 
In this last form this absolute activity is also called 
freedom. Freedom is the sensible representation of 
self-activity, and it arises through the contrast be- 
tween the fixedness (^Gebundenheit) of the object, and 
of ourselves as intelligence, in so far as we refer the 
same [object] to ourselves. 

'^ I posit myself as free in so far as I explain a sen- 
sible act or a being from my concept, which is in that 
case called a purpose-concept (der Zweckhegriff^? 
The fact represented above, that I find myself work- 
ing, is therefore possible only under the condition 
that I presuppose a concept sketched by myself 
according to which my activity directs itself, and 
through which it should be grounded formally as 



iSittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 8-9. 
2 See also Werke IV, 71. 



Practical Philosophy in General. 37 

well as determined materially. We have accordingly 
here, besides the manifold characteristics already 
represented above, in the idea of our activity some- 
thing new which was not necessary to be noted 
above, and which has been derived herewith. But 
it is well to note that the previous sketching of such 
a concept is only posited, and belongs solely to the 
sensible view of our self-activity. 

'' The concept from which an objective determin- 
ation is to follow, the purpose-concept as it is called, 
is, it will be remembered, not again determined 
through an object, but it is determined absolutely 
through itself. For, were this not the case, then I 
would not be absolutely active, and I would not be 
so posited directly, but my activity would be de- 
pendent on a being and mediated through it, which 
is contrary to the presupposition. In the course of 
the developed consciousness, it is true, the purpose- 
concept appears as conditioned, although not deter- 
mined through the cognition of a being; but here 
at the origin of all consciousness, where we start 
from activity and it is absolute, the fact is not to be 
regarded. The most important result thus far at- 
tained is this : that there is an absolute independence 
and self-dependence of the mere concept^ (the categor- 
ical in the so-called categorical imperative,) in conse- 
quence of the causality of the subjective upon the 
objective; just as there must be an absolute being 
(of matter) posited through itself in consequence of 
the causality of the objective upon the subjective; 



38 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichteh Philosophy. 

and we have accordingly the two ends of the whole 
world of reason joined together. 

^' He who comprehends properly this self-depen- 
dence of the concept, will receive therewith the most 
complete light concerning our whole system, and, at 
the same time, the most immovable conviction of its 
truth."! 

From these somewhat lengthy quotations concern- 
ing the activity of the Ego in the practical sphere, we 
learn the following facts : (1) This activity can not 
be described to one who does not find it in himself, 
but it must be known directly. (2) It manifests 
itself in the formation of the purpose-concept, and 
then, in physical activity corresponding to this con- 
cept. This is called the causality of the concept. 
(3) This original purpose-concept is determined ab- 
solutely through itself, that is, it is not determined 
through anything objective. ^' There is an absolute 
independence and self-dependence of the mere con- 
cept." (4) '' Absolute activity is the one predicate 
belonging to me simply and directly." (5) The sen- 
sible embodiment of this self-activity, that is, the ob- 
jective realization of the purpose-concept, is called 
freedom. 

So much concerning the idea and the nature of 
activity. We are directly conscious of this inner ac- 
tivity in all conscious experience, and especially in 
the formation of purpose concepts. We are also 
directly conscious of physical activity corresponding 



iSittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 9-10. 



Practical Philosophy in General, 39 

to the concept and following from it. But, although 
we are thus directly conscious of these two activi- 
ties, they appear to us as two kinds of activity. The 
one is sensible, the other not sensible; and it remains 
for us to explain this duality in appearance by iden- 
tifying the body, the material world, with the origi- 
nal activity of the Ego in thinking and willing, if 
our posited principle of free activity is to serve as 
ground principle of practical philosophy. 

^' From the concept an objective follows. How is 
this possible, and what can it mean ? Nothing else 
than that the concept appears to me as something 
objective. But the purpose-concept regarded objec- 
tively is called will (^WoUen)^ and the idea of an act 
of will is nothing more than this necessary view of 
the posited purpose-concept in order to become 
conscious of our own activity. The spiritual in me 
looked at directly as principle of activity becomes 
for me an act of will." ^ The act of willing is transi- 
tion from the purpose-concept to the actual objective 
representation of the same in the material world, 
with the emphasis upon the act of transition rather 
than on the result. 

" Now, I am to work upon matter, described above 
as to its origin. But it is impossible to think an ac- 
tion upon matter, except through that which is itself 
matter. As I think myself acting upon it, therefore, 
as I must, I myself become matter ; and, in so far as 
I so regard myself, I call myself a material body. I, 

1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 10-11. 



40 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy. 

regarded as principle of activity in the material world, 
am an articulate body ; and the idea of my body is 
nothing else than the idea of myself as cause in the 
physical world, hence, indirectly, nothing but a cer- 
tain view of my absolute activity. 

^' But, now, the will is to have causality, and, in- 
deed, a direct causality upon my body, and, only so 
far as this direct causality of the will goes, does the 
body as instrument or articulation go. * * >}^ :^ 
The will is, therefore, to be distinguished from the 
body, and it does not appear as the same. But this 
distinction is nothing else than a second separation 
of the subjective and the objective, or, still more 
definitely, a special view of this original separation. 
The will is, in this relation, the subjective, and the 
body the objective." ^ 

There is a possible confusion in the above state- 
ments, caused by the reference to the will as the ob- 
jective when compared with the purpose-concept, and 
as the subjective when compared with the material 
body. The difficulty disappears, however, when we 
remember that Fichte has already identified the ac- 
tivity of the knowing consciousness with the activity 
of the willing consciousness. The difference is rather 
a difference of degree than of kind, comparable in- 
deed to attention and will proper of modern psy- 
chology. It might seem that in the sentence, '' the 
purpose-concept, objectively regarded, is called a will- 
ing," he has carried the idea of will rather far into 

1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 11 ; see also Werke IV., 127-128. 



Practical Philosophy in General, 41 

the objective world, and has contrasted the activity 
of the self in the act of willing, with the activity of 
the self in the act of knowing, more strongly than 
the general spirit of his discussion would allow. 
But, since the knowing act, the willing act, and the 
material world are ultimately identical for Fichte, 
the question is of little importance.^ 

The problem as to how the objective can become 
the subjective and what such a thing can mean, is 
solved in the fact that the objective and the subjec- 
tive are in reality one, being but different manifes- 
tations of the same original essence. Eegarded from 
one point of view, this essence appears as will, from 
another point of view, as body. Were the objective 
and the subjective not in reality one, the fact that I 
work upon the world could have no explanation, for 
only like can work upon like. 

The subjective within me has become the objec- 
tive, the purpose-concept has become a determina- 
tion of the will, and, this, in turn, has become a cer- 
tain modification of my body. '' All the manifold 
lying in the perception of our sensible activity, has 
now been derived from the law of consciousness, as 
was required. We find the last member of our de- 
ductions to be the same as that from which we started, 
our inquiry has returned into itself, and it is, there- 
fore, concluded. The result of this inquiry is, in 
short, as follows : The single absolute upon which 
all consciousness and all being is founded, is pure 

1 Sittenlelire of 1798, Werke IV., 85. 



42 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy. 

activity. This activity appears, in consequence of 
the law of consciousness and especially in conse- 
quence of its ground principle, that the active (as 
Ego), can only be regarded as united subject and 
object as activity upon something outside of me. All 
that is contained in this appearance, from the pur- 
pose attributed to me absolutely through myself on 
the one hand, to the crude matter of the world on 
the other, all these are mediating members of the 
appearance and consequently are themselves only 
appearances. The one thing pure and true is my 
self-dependence." ^ 

Thus ends the introduction to the Sittenlehre of 
1798, and we now have before us, in abstract form, 
the whole of practical philosophy in general, with 
its relation to the principles of theoretical philosophy. 
We proceed next to a consideration of the principle 
of freedom in the more definite sphere of individual 
ethics. This will necessarily involve some exposi- 
tion of the ethical system as a whole, but only so 
much of it will be introduced as may serve to give 
a proper setting to the particular subject under con- 
sideration. 

In the mind of man there is a felt obligation to 
do certain things and to leave undone certain other 
things, absolutely for their own sake, and with no 
reference to external ends. So far as this disposition 
expresses itself in man necessarily, that is, so surely 

1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 12. 



Practical Philosophy in General, 43 

as lie is a man, it is called the ethical or moral nature.^ 
If one merely accepts this feeling of obligation as a 
fact, without inquiring ^4n what way and on what 
grounds" it exists, he occupies the '' standpoint of 
common consciousness" in his knowledge of the 
subject. If, however, he would know the ground of 
such obligation and how it arises, he has a ''scholarly 
knowledge" of it. ^^ Die Sittenlehre is not Weis- 
sheitslehre — such is in general impossible, since wis- 
dom (die Weisheit) is to be regarded more as an art 
than as a science, — but just as all philosophy, Wis- 
senschaftslehre ; it is especially the theory of the 
consciousness of our moral nature in general and of 
our definite duties in particular." ^ Just as it is the 
problem of theoretical philosophy to explain the 
necessary consciousness of something that is (for 
consciousness, not in itself), so it is the problem of 
the ethical part of practical philosophy to explain 
the necessary consciousness of what ought to be. The 
consciousness of something that is in the perception 
of the Non-Ego, appears not more necessary than 
the consciousness of what ought to be in the percep- 
tion of duty.^ It is this last phenomenon that ethics 
has to explain. 

To state the problem in other words: In my 
consciousness at the present moment is a representa- 
tion of things as they are, of myself in relation to 
my fellow creatures and to the world in general. 



1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 13. 
2Ibid, WerkelV., 15. 
sibid, WerkelV., 15. 



44 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy, 

Together with this representation of things as they 
are, comes another representation of things as they 
ought to be. In order that this representation of 
things as they ought to be may be realized, I my- 
self must act, and as a consequence of this activity, 
my present relation to the world at large must be 
changed ; or, the world must be changed through my 
activity ; that is to say, I feel e certain responsibility 
for the existing state of affairs, since it is within my 
power to change it. But between the consciousness 
of things as they now are, and the consciousness of 
things as they ought to be, must intervene a third 
state of consciousness, viz., the consciousness of my- 
self as actually effecting this change. Let us put the 
case in the concrete. But in doing so it may be well 
to restate briefly the principles of practical philoso- 
phy in general, adding to them certain amplifications 
and distinctions that shall serve to bring them into 
clearer relation to the conscious moral life of the in- 
dividual. 

''I find myself working in the material world." 
This fact, — the fundamental fact in all self-conscious 
life, — implies consciousness of the Ego regarded both 
subjectively and objectively, as will and as body. 
But will and body are only two different manifesta- 
tions of one and the same original free activity. 
Let us consider the nature of this activity in the 
two forms of its manifestations : and first the activ- 
ity of the Ego subjectively regarded. 



Practical Philosophy in General. 45 

"I find myself only as willing." ^ I am directly 
conscious of an indescribable subjective activity in 
all voluntary action. ^ It is not a sensible but an in- 
tellectual activity and it can only be known through 
intellectual intuition.^ It is nevertheless an object 
of the knowing consciousness. The act of willing 
is the objective to which the act of knowing as the 
subjective, corresponds. 

Let us now analyze more closely this conscious- 
ness of myself as willing, and see just what it contains. 
The idea of the act of willing, so far as it applies to 
the external world at all, pictures the objective reali- 
zation of a concept previously formed in the mind.'^ 
Without the formation of this purpose-concept to be 
realized objectively, there can be no act of will. But 
the purpose-concept may be formed without the 
accomplishment of the corresponding act of will by 
which the concept is realized objectively. ^ The 
formation of the purpose-concept, in the first place, 
and the objective realization of it, are, by abstrac- 
tion, separate and distinct acts. The one is an act 
of thought, the other an act of will, but both are 
products of one and the same free activity, and in 
this they are identical. ^ 

Since the act of willing cannot occur without the 
previous formation of a purpose-concept, it is im- 

1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 18. 

2Ibid,WerkeIV.,24. 

3Ibid, WerkelV., 87. 

4Ibid,WerkeIV.,86. 

5Ibid, WerkelV., 85. 

eibid, WerkeIV.,88, 104. 



46 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichteh Philosophy » 

portant to consider carefully the nature of this con- 
cept and the manner of its determination, for here 
we are at the very root of all consciousness. These 
purpose-concepts are the product of the original 
activity of the Ego. In theoretical philosophy we 
found that this activity of the Ego is sometimes de- 
termined through the Non-Ego, the result being a 
necessary consciousness of something that exists 
(for consciousness). But the fundamental principle 
of practical philosophy is that the Ego determines 
the Non-Ego, not the Non-Ego the Ego. Hence, 
since the activity of the subjective Ego in the form- 
ation of the purpose-concept cannot be determined 
through the activity of the objective Ego or of the 
Non-Ego, and since besides the Ego and the Non-Ego 
there is nothing, both of these being but different 
sides of one and the same original activity, we are 
driven to the conclusion that in the formation of 
purpose-concepts, the Ego is determined absolutely 
through itself. 1 As before stated, it maybe ^con- 
ditioned ' but it cannot be ' determined ' through 
anything but its own activity. It acts so and so, 
absolutely because it so acts. It determines itself 
absolutely, and in this self-determination it fulfills 
the concept of freedom. ^ It freely makes its own 
freedom its law, and then, as intelligence, it necessa- 
rily determines itself according to this self-imposed 
law. In the formation of cognitive concepts, it may 



1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 43, { 
2Ibid, WerkeIV.,32, 67. 



Practical Philosophy in General, 47 

be determined through the Non-Ego. The purpose- 
concept formed later may harmonize with this nec- 
essary cognitive concept whose main content is im- 
pulse or inclination, but the other alternative is open 
also, that of forming a purpose-concept that shall 
oppose the inclination expressed in the necessary- 
impulsive cognitive concept. So much for the activ- 
ity of the Ego subjectively regarded. We now con- 
sider the activity of the objective Ego. 

''If one thinks the Ego objectively at first, and, 
so it is found before all other consciousness, one can 
not describe its determination otherwise than through 
a tendency or an impulse. >{^ >}^ >l< M< The objec- 
tive nature of an Ego is by no means that of being 
or existing ; for, if it were so, it would become its 
opposite, that is, a thing. Its essence is absolute ac- 
tivity and nothing but activity ; but activity, taken 
objectively, is impulse (<i6r Trieb).''^ The activity 
of the Ego, regarded objectively, that is, as body, is 
called sensible impulse or nature impulse {Natur- 
trieb), in contrast with the activity of the Ego taken 
subjectively, which is called pure impulse (der reine 
Trieb')? This sensible impulse, which is one form of 
the original activity of the Ego, works necessarily in 
the body, and the subjective Ego is in no way re- 
sponsible for it.^ It acts upon and determines the 
subjective Ego, thus producing consciousness of itself. 
This consciousness of the sensible impulse is called 

1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 105. 
9Ibid, WerkelV., 141. 
3Ibid, WerkeilV., 125. 



48 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy, 

feeling (^Gefuhl), Feeling is produced through the 
activity of the objective Ego, that is, sensible im- 
pulse, upon the subjective Ego. The latter is essen- 
tially passive until it is determined through the 
sensible impulse, and, with this determination arises 
feeling. This consciousness of sensible impulse, this 
feeling, is also called longing {das Sehnen)^ ^^ an in- 
definite sensation of need, that is, it is determined 
through no notion of an object." ^ These longings, 
as for example, the bodily appetites, appear neces- 
sarily, and are in no sense the product of the free ac- 
tivity of the conscious Ego. The latter has no part 
in their production, but it is, nevertheless, compelled 
to recognize them.^ If, however, the subjective Ego 
not only recognizes the longing, as it is compelled to 
do, but reflects upon it freely, and reflects, also, upon 
that which would satisfy it, thus forming a purpose- 
concept, the longing passes over into desire {das 
Begehren)? The feeling of hunger, an indefinite 
longing, forces itself upon my consciousness neces- 
sarily. I may, or may not, reflect upon this longing.* 
Just here is the point of transition from the neces- 
sary consciousness to the free consciousness, and here, 
morality begins.^ If I do reflect upon my longing, 
that is, upon my hunger, and form the concept of 
myself as taking the apple which would satisfy the 



iSittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 106. 
2 Ibid, Werke IV., 107-108, 113. 
3Il)id, Werke IV., 126. 
4 Ibid, Werke IV., 130. 
5 Ibid, Werke IV., 126-127. 



Practical Philosophy in the Ethical Sphere. 49 

longing, the latter passes over into desire. If, in 
addition to all this, I freely realize objectively this 
purpose-concept, the desire passes over into an act 
of will (das Wollen)} The subjective purpose-con- 
cept, conditioned, but not determined by the neces- 
sary longing, freely formed by the reflecting Ego 
and freely realized objectively by the willing Ego, 
has become the objective act. 

Thus far in our re-statement we are still in the 
realm of practical philosophy in general, and have not 
reached the field of ethics or moral activity. The 
sensible impulse of the objective Ego forms a neces- 
sary cognitive concept with a content of feeling or 
longing. But the pure impulse of the subjective Ego 
has within it the power of absolute self-determination 
in the formation of purpose-concepts. It may or may 
not choose to satisfy the longing that thrusts itself 
into consciousness.^ Or, in the absence of all sense 
feeling, a purpose-concept may be formed, and the 
accompanying act of will be accomplished through 
the free self-determination of the activity of the sub- 
jective Ego. 

But there now enters the peculiar fact of moral 
consciousness, viz., a purpose-concept accompanied 
by the feeling of necessity.^ With no reference to 
the end to be attained, I yet feel that I ought to act 
so and so, or I ought not to do the same. Before 
this the formation of the purpose-concept was a 

1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 130, 138. 

2 Ibid, Werke IV., 73-74, 108. 

3 Ibid, Werke IV., 13. 17, 55. 



50 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy. 

matter of indifference, of mere choice for me. 
Whether I did or did not produce it, was a matter 
of my own choosing, just as in theoretical philosophy 
the freely formed cognitive concepts were products 
of my own free will. But, to compare the two fields 
again, as in theoretical philosophy, we form certain 
necessary cognitive concepts, so here in practical 
philosophy we find certain necessary purpose-con- 
cepts. We may avoid the objective realization of 
them through a real act of will, but we can not avoid 
the presence of the concepts themselves. 

To explain the appearance of these necessary 
purpose-concepts would be to explain the sense of 
moral obligation, and this, the purpose of our paper 
will not permit us to do in detail. We can do little 
more than give Fichte's own summarized statement 
of the ' principle of morality ' in the abstract : 

'' The principle of morality is the necessary 
thought of the intelligence that it should determine 
its freedom according to the notion of self-depend- 
ence absolutely without exception. It is a thought^ 
and in no way a feeling or a perception, though this 
thought is grounded upon the intellectual perception 
of the absolute activity of the intelligence; a pure 
thought with which not the least element of feeling 
or of sensible perception can be mixed, since it is 
the direct concept of the pure intelligence by itself 
as such ; a necessary thought, for it is the form under 
which the freedom of the intelligence is thought; 
the first and absolute thought, for it is the notion of 



Practical Philosophy in the Ethical Sphere, 51 

the thinking itself, and so it is grounded upon no 
other thought as consequence upon its ground, and 
it is conditioned through no other. 

" The content of this thought is that a free being 
ought; for ought is just the determination of free- 
dom; that it should bring its freedom under a law; 
that this law should be nothing else than the concept 
of absolute self-dependence (absolute indetermina- 
bility through anything outside of it) ; finally, that 
this law should be valid without exception, because 
it contains the original determination of the free 
being." 1 

The free activity of the Ego as intelligence, has 
freely made its own self-dependence, its own freedom, 
its law. Hence its law is its own freedom, its free- 
dom is its law. For it, law and freedom have become 
identical. That which the intelligence recognizes as 
being in line with the continued free activity of the 
Ego, becomes definite content of the law of freedom, 
that is, of the moral law. That which militates 
against the self-dependence of the individual, is, by 
virtue of this principle, excluded from the moral 
law. This is the test of virtuous action. As thought, 
the Ego, must, in consequence of its being an Ego, 
act according to this self-imposed law of freedom; 
hence, in short, the sense of obligation and the pres- 
ence of the necessary purpose-concepts. As will, 
the Ego may or may not choose to realize these pur- 
pose-concepts objectively. 

1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 59-60 ; see also Werke IV., 69. 
5 



52 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fiditeh Philosophy. 

The moral nature or impulse (der Urtrieb) is a 
union of the original pure activity of the subjective 
Ego, and the nature impulse of the objective Bgo.^ 
The one of these is an impulse to activity for the 
sake of activity, the other an impulse to activity for 
the sake of enjoyment. They frequently come into 
opposition. Should the nature impulse prevail com- 
pletely over the pure impulse, the Ego would become 
a mere nature thing, subject to the law of necessity, 
and it would thus cease to be Ego. On the other 
hand, should the pure impulse wholly prevail over 
the nature impulse, the latter would be destroyed, 
and as the former would then have no means of ex- 
pression^ the Ego itself would be destroyed also. In 
moral action both must be united. Hence the moral 
law, variously expressed as follows: '^Act according 
to thy conscience." '^ Act always according to the 
best conviction of thy duty." "Our activity must 
lie in a series, through the continuation of which 
into infinity, the Ego would become absolutely inde- 
pendent." 2 

From this consideration of the facts of the dis- 
tinctively moral consciousness, we may summarize 
the following conclusions : (1) As before in theoreti- 
cal philosophy, and in practical philosophy in gen- 
eral, so here we find as the fundamental element 
in all consciousness the free activity of the Ego. 
(2) This activity of the Ego as intellige;nce, freely 

1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 130, 144. 

2 Ibid, Werke IV.. 153, 156. 



Practical Philosophy in the Ethical Sphere, 53 

makes its own self-dependence its law, thus giving 
rise to the necessary thought of the Ego, that it 
should, without exception, determine its action ac- 
cording to the notion of self-dependence. Hence 
the sense of moral obligation and the presence of 
necessary purpose-concepts of what is right. (3) The 
moral impulse is a union of the pure impulse of the 
original Ego with nature impulse, and it impels us 
to act in a way that shall tend to the absolute self- 
dependence of the Ego, even though such absolute 
self-dependence can not be thought as attainable in 
finite time; and if it could be attained, it would only 
be by the destruction of the nature impulse, thereby 
destroying consciousness and finally the Ego itself. 
(4) "The phenomenon of freedom is a direct fact of 
consciousness, and in no sense a consequence of some 
other thought." 1 A belief in the objective validity 
of the appearance is derived in pait from the con- 
sciousness of moral obligation. 

Our purpose in dwelling at so great length upon 
these facts of the moral consciousness, is to show 
Fichte's idea of the relation existing between the 
sense of moral obligation and freedom.^ The moral 
law, the sense of obligation, has its origin in the 
freedom of the (Absolute) Ego in choosing to submit 
itself to the law of its own choosing, that is, to the 
law of its own independence ; and the moral law has 
its end in the final supremacy of the pure impulse 



1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 53. 

2 Ibid, Werke IV., 68-69, 91. 



54 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichteh Philosophy, 

over the nature impulse of the individual, that is 
in the final independence of the individual as pure 
impulse.! The consciousness of moral obligation, 
among other things, leads us to believe in the real 
validity of individual freedom as it appears directly 
in consciousness. 

In approaching directly the problem of freedom, 
it will be necessary to examine more closely than we 
have yet done, the nature of the Ego as revealed 
not in common consciousness, but in self-conscious 
states. In the meantime let us not forget the ulti- 
mate question. 

Our problem is to think the self merely as self, 
apart from all that it is not. Intellectual intuition 
reveals the self only as willing, as mere will. If I 
think any object, for example the wall or a table, I 
am directly conscious in this act of thinking both 
of my thinking and of the object thought, as opposed 
to my thinking. My thinking and the object appear 
not as one but as different.^ If, however, instead of 
thinking an external object, I think myself as object, 
I am directly conscious of myself as thinking and of 
myself as thought, as one and the same. Both ap- 
pear as activity or as mere will. Even though the 
object, whether it be the table or the self, be forced 
upon consciousness and thus appear as something 
^ given,' and hence as necessarily determining con- 
sciousness, we are yet compelled to recognize the self 



iSittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 166. 
2Ibid,WerkeIV.,18. 



Practical Philosophy in the Ethical Sphere. 55 

as active, that is, as willing in the apprehension of 
that object. Just what this activity, this willing, 
means, can be known only through self-intuition. I 
am directly conscious of it, and " I add to this willing 
in my thought something existing independent of 
my consciousness, which should be the willing in 
this act of willing, which should have this will, some- 
thing in which this will should dwell. I am directly 
conscious of this willing, I perceive it, 1 say. Of 
this consciousness, of this perception, I become con- 
scious at the same time, and I refer it likewise to a 
substance. This knowing substance is just the same 
as that which wills; and therefore do I find myself 
as that which wills, or, I find myself willing." ^ 

It is to be carefully noted here that in the state- 
ment, "I find myself only as willing or as mere 
will," Fichte refers to the activity of the self qua 
activity, whether it be manifested in the apprehend- 
ing of a sense object thrust upon consciousness, or 
in the act of will proper, the product of which is 
some modification of the external world. If we may 
speak of degrees of activity, the former illustrates a 
less active, the latter the most active state of the 
Ego ; but there is activity in both, and this is the 
essence of Pichte's claim. 

The self thought as substance underlying willing 
and knowing, is not itself a direct object of percep- 
tion. Only its two manifestations, thinking and 
willing, are directly perceptible. ''The former is 

iSittenlehre of 1798. Werke IV., 20. 



56 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy. 

originally and directly for itself not an object of a 
special new consciousness, but consciousness itself. 
Only in so far as it goes to another object, and is 
opposed to the same, does it become in this opposition, 
itself objective. There is left, accordingly, as orig- 
inal objective expression of that substance, only the 
latter, the will ; which remains always only objective, 
is never itself a thinking but always only the thought 
expression of self-activity. In short, the expression 
which alone I attribute to myself originally, is will- 
ing; only under condition that I am conscious of it, 
do I become conscious of myself."^ 

But will as mere activity is impossible alone. 
There must be something against which the activity 
is directed. This opposed something always appears 
in consciousness. Without this duality, the form of 
consciousness, the acting and the acted upon, there 
is no consciousness possible. Hence, in order to 
think the self merely as self, apart from all that it is 
not, we must abstract from that which appears as 
the object of the activity of the self. This done, we 
find that '^ the essential character of the Ego whereby 
it is distinguished from all outside it, consists in a 
tendency to self-activity for the sake of self-activity; 
and it is this tendency which is thought when the 
Ego is thought in and for itself without reference to 
anything outside it."^ 

The Ego is only what it posits itself as being, 

iSittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 20. 
sibid, WerkelV., 29. 



Practical Philosophy in the Ethical Sphere^ 57 

that is, only what it finds itself to be in reflection on 
itself. A thing is mere being without consciousness, 
and it exists only for a consciousness outside itself.^ 
The Ego, on the contrary, regarded as thinking, as 
intelligence, is both being and consciousness of being 
in one. The distinguishing characteristic of the Ego 
as intelligence, is that it must know of itself. This 
knowledge is part of all consciousness. In the com- 
mon consciousness, however, the self almost sinks 
out of sight ; it is all but lost in our contemplation 
of the object known.^ Only to the philosopher 
comes a clear consciousness of the consciousness of 
self. "But all philosophy lies in knowing the sub- 
ject as such in order to judge its influence upon the 
determination of the object. This can come only by 
making mere reflection the object of a new reflec- 
tion."^ This second consciousness, this conscious- 
ness of consciousness, reveals the fact that " the Ego 
has the absolute faculty of intuition, for just by 
means of this act does it become the Ego. This fac- 
ulty can not be further derived, and it needs no fur- 
ther derivation. As an Ego is posited, this faculty 
is posited. * * >l< >K 

" The intuiting (intelligente) which just through 
the postulated [intuiting] act, becomes intelligent, 
posits the tendency to absolute activity in conse- 
quence of the postulate, as — itself; that is, as iden- 
tical with itself the intelligent. That absoluteness of 



iSittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 29-30. 
2Ibid,WerkeIV., 31. 
3 Ibid. Werke IV., 31. 



58 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy. 

real acting becomes accordingly hereby the essence 
of an intelligence, and comes under the dominion of 
the concept; and only thereby does it \)ecom.G freedom 
proper, absoluteness of absoluteness, absolute faculty 
to make itself absolute."^ 

How, now, are we to think this freedom, this 
absoluteness of the intelligence? What is freedom? 
But first, what is necessity ? 

A steel pen pressed from without, returns to its 
normal position as soon as the pressure is removed. 
In this act it is determined, self-determined, but it is 
not free, for it is determined necessarily by its own 
nature. Suppose now we think away this necessity, 
this subjection to law, of the pen, and find that, now, 
we know not why, it returns to its original position. 
May we, in this case, regard it as free? By no 
means, for although it is determined, it is determined 
by chance, it does not determine itself. Freedom is 
not a freedom of indifference. A free being is one 
that freely determines itself, and we must get the 
conception of a free self-determination before we 
have the conception of freedom. The pen is deter- 
mined through its own nature. " The nature of a 
thing is its fixed existence without inner motion, 
quiet and dead; and thus one posits necessarily when 
one posits a thing and the nature of it; for such 
positing is just the thinking of a thing. In this 
quiet, unchangeable existence, one has already in- 
cluded the thought — it lies predestined therein — that 

1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 31-32. 



Practical Philosophy in the Ethical Sphere, 59 

under a certain condition a certain change will fol- 
low, for one has thought at the beginning, a fixed 
unchangeable. This is the nature of the thing which 
is not at all independent of it, for the thing is just 
its nature and its nature is the thing; as one thinks 
the one, so he necessarily thinks the other also, 
and one can not allow the thing to exist before its 
nature, in order that it may itself determine its 
nature."^ When one has thought a thing and its 
nature, he places all modifications of it in a series, 
of which it itself and all other things with which it 
is connected, form parts. Modification of one thing 
means modification of part or all of the others, and 
that necessarily and in a determined way. Things 
are changed or produced by other things. "One's 
perception [of these modifications] is always fixed, 
and it remains fixed ; it is continually only the on- 
looker, and there is no moment in the series when it 
could raise itself to self- active production (Servo?' - 
bringen) ; it is just this state of one's thinking that 
is called the thought of necessity^ and by means of it 
one takes away all freedom from the thing thought. 

>{< ^ jjc >}c 5iC 

" Objectively expressed, all being that issues from 
being, is necessarily being, and in no way a product 
of freedom; or, subjectively, through the union of a 
being with another being, arises for us the notion of 
a necessary being." ^ 



iSittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 34. 

2 Ibid, Werke IV., 35 ; see also Werke IV., 112-115. 



60 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy. 

In order to be thought Sisfree, a being must freely 
determine itself. But how is it possible to think 
this free self-determination? A thing cannot be 
thought as freely self-determining ; for it has no ex- 
istence apart from its necessary determination, its 
nature. It is determined necessarily either through 
itself, as in the case of an elastic pen or of an organ- 
ism, or through another thing, as in the case of 
impact of one body upon another. But in order 
that being shall be thought as freely self-determin- 
ing, it must be thought as existing before it is deter- 
mined, that it may determine itself.^ Only thinking 
can be so thought, for 'Hhinking is not posited as 
something with a fixed existence, but as activity and 
merely as activity of the intelligence. >l^ * ^ ^ The 
free being exists as intelligence with the notion of 
its real being, before the real being, and in the former 
lies the ground of the latter. The notion of a cer- 
tain being precedes that being, and the latter is 
dependent on the former." ^ 

We have seen, too, that a necessary being is one 
that issues from being. By contrast we may reach 
what is required for thinking freedom. ^' One re- 
quires a being not without all ground, for so one can 
think nothing, but something whose ground lies not 
again in a being but in something else. Now besides 
being there is for us nothing but thinking. The 
being which one must think as a product of freedom, 

1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 50. 
2Ibid,WerkeIV., 36. 



Practical Philosophy in ihe Ethical Sphere, 61 

must accordingly issue from a thinking." ^ Kant 
regarded freedom as the " faculty of absolutely be- 
ginning a condition." But how is this conceivable? 
^' The absolutely begun condition is not joined abso- 
lutely to nothing ; for a finite rational being neces- 
sarily thinks only mediately, and so always in con- 
nection until be comprehends thinking itself. It 
only is not joined to another being, but to a think- 
ing."2 

The contrast between necessity and freedom, 
yields, then, the following result. A necessary being 
is one that has its nature necessarily determined, and 
it issues from being. A free being is one that fully 
determines its own nature, and it issues from some- 
thing that is not being, that is, from thinking. 

There is no denying that a thing fulfills the idea 
of necessity as described, and we may dismiss fur- 
ther questioning concerning it. But we have yet to 
consider more carefully whether the Ego is the em- 
bodiment of a true conception of freedom. Fichte's 
thesis is that "only something free can be thought 
as intelligence, an intelligence is necessarily free." 
Following the contrast between freedom and neces- 
sity as already indicated, we shall attempt to answer 
two questions : First, what does Fichte mean by the 
free self-determination of the Ego? Second, what 
does he mean by the assertion that a being follows 
from thinking? 

1 Sittenlelire of 1798, Werke IV., 35, 
2Ibid,WerkeIV., 37. 



62 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte's Philosophy, 

The Ego itself is pure activity, the two manifes- 
tations of which are thinking and willing. It be- 
comes necessary then to ask the meaning of free 
self-determination of the Ego, both as thinking and 
as willing. 

It lies within the sphere of the Ego as thinking 
to form both cognitive -concepts and purpose-con- 
cepts, the latter only in so far as they remain the 
mere representation of a possible action. Is it true 
that in the formation of these concepts the Ego does 
determine itself, that is, is free? We remember as 
the starting point of theoretical philosophy the fact 
that in consciousness there are certain cognitive- 
concepts which press upon us with the feeling of 
necessity, while others appear to come and go at our 
pleasure. Clearly then the Ego as thinking is not 
always free so far as the content of consciousness is 
concerned. Indeed, at the very origin of all con- 
sciousness '^ the idea to be sought is necessarily a 
perception, that is, the subjective appears in it as 
determined completely and thoroughly, and without 
its own interference." 1 In the sphere of individual 
ethics we found also, that certain purpose-concepts 
present themselves accompanied by the feeling of 
necessity, that is, with a feeling that they ought to 
be realized objectively. And here again, the Ego 
as thinking seems to be determined, that is, it does 
not determine itself. Are there, then, any concepts, 
either purpose -concepts or cognitive-concepts, which 

1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 6. 



Practical Philosophy in the Ethical Sphere, 63 

can be regarded as products of the free self-deter- 
mination of the Ego, undetermined either by another 
thinking being or by some external object? Fichte 
does not treat this question at great length, the rea- 
son doubtless being, that for him the problem of 
philosophy was not the discovery of relations be- 
tween subjective states or objective conditions, but 
between the subjective and the objective as such. It 
was his business to explain experience; that is, those 
states of consciousness that were accompanied by 
the feeling of necessity. There can be no doubt, 
however, that he regards consciousness as ' condi- 
tioned ' though not ^determined' externally. ^'The 
Ego, just because it is an Ego, has a causality upon 
itself, that of reflecting upon itself, or the faculty of 
reflection." 1 This striving (das Strehen) of the Ego 
resulting in reflection, is necessary to the very exist- 
ence of the Ego as intelligence. The activity of the 
Ego is the original upon which the possibility of 
reflection depends. 

^^ From this follows then most clearly the subor- 
dination of theory to practice ; it follows that all 
theoretical laws are grounded upon practical, and 
since there is but one practical law, upon one and 
the same law ; it [Fichte's own] is therefore the most 
complete system in all existence ; it follows that if 
the impulse should be increased, there would be an 
increase of discernment, and vice versa ; there follows 
the absolute freedom of abstraction and reflexion, 

1 Grundlage, der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre, Werke I., 293. 



64 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichtes Philosophy* 

even in theoretical relations, and the possibility of 
conscientiously directing the attention to one thing 
and abstracting it from something else, without 
which there is no morality. Fatalism, which is 
grounded on the fact that our willing and acting are 
dependent upon the system of our ideas, is destroyed 
at the very root, since here it is shown that the sys- 
tem of our ideas again depends upon our impulse 
and our willing; and this is the only way to refute 
it thoroughly." 1 

It is within the sphere of the Ego as will that 
Fichte is concerned to show its power of absolute 
self-determination. Whether the purpose-concepts 
are free or necessary, the realization of them in the 
objective world is certainly, according to Fichte, a 
matter of free choice.^ ''Every member of a natural 
series is one previously determined, it is determined 
according to the laws of the mechanism or of the 
organism. One can, if one knows completely the 
nature of the thing and the law according to which 
it acts, predict to all eternity how it will express it- 
self. What will occur in the Ego from the time 
when it becomes Ego and only remains really Ego, 
is not previously determined, and it is absolutely in- 
determinable. There is no law according to which 
free self-determinations follow and can be foreseen, 
because they depend upon the determination of the 
intelligence ; but this is, as such, absolutely free, is 



1 Grundlage, der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre, Werke I., 294-295. 
ssittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 112-113, 159, 161, 162. 



Practical Philosophy in the Ethical Sphere, 65 

nothing but pure activity. A nature series is fixed. 
Every member in it does all that it can. A series of 
determinations of freedom consists of leaps and goes 
by starts, as it were. Think a member in such a 
series as determined, and call it A. From A on, there 
may be many possible determinations ; however, not 
everything possible but only the determined part of 
the same, equaling X, follows. In the one case, all 
hangs together in a strong chain, in the other, the 
agreement is broken at every member. In a nature 
series every member can be explained. In a series 
of determinations of freedom, none can be explained, 
for every one is a first and absolute. There the law 
of causality prevails, here the law of substantiality, 
that is, every free conclusion is itself substantial, it 
is what it is absolutely through itself." ^ 

I am directly conscious of the presentation of 
two possible courses of action. I choose between 
them and perform the chosen one. In so doing, the 
Ego freely determines itself. If the alternatives are 
throwing the ball and putting it into my pocket, and 
I do the former, the Ego, the self, the intelligence is, 
at the moment of throwing, determined in a different 
way from what it would have been, had I put the 
ball into my pocket. The existence of the Ego as 
activity in the concept prior to the corresponding 
objective activity, makes possible the conception of 
the self-determination of the Ego, and as it had the 
power of choice between different forms of self-de- 

iSittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 134-135. 



66 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte's Philosophy. 

termination, we may conclude that it fulfills the con- 
ditions of a free self-determination. By this free 
self-determination, Pichte means the power to realize 
objectively, by an act of free choice, any one of two 
or more courses of action presented as possible, the 
only ground of the action being the purpose-concept 
which it fulfills. 

This brings us to our second question, viz., what 
can it mean that a being issues from thinking? For- 
tunately Fichte is very explicit here, and there can 
be no doubt that he means the absolute, beginning of 
a series of nature causes. ^^ Reality, where its ground 
is a concept, is called a product of freedom." ^ ^^ The 
causality of nature has its limits ; if there should be 
causality beyond these limits, it must necessarily be 
of another kind. What follows upon an impulse, 
nature does not effect, for it is spent with the crea- 
tion of the impulse ; I act, it is true, with a power 
which is derived from nature, but which is no more 
its power but mine^ because it has come under the 
dominion of a principle lying beyond all nature, 
under that of the concept." ^ 

^^ Let us posit a nature power, equaling X. Since 
it is a nature power, it works mechanically by neces- 
sity, that is, it always produces what it can produce 
by virtue of its nature under these conditions. The 
expression of such a power is, if it equals A, neces- 
sarily equal to A, and it would be contradictory to 
suppose instead of it something else, e. g.-A. 



iSittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 134. 
2n)id, WerkelV., 135. 



Practical Philosophy in the Ethical Sphere. 67 

"Now is this law applicable to the will? First, 
what is most essential and what I have distinctly 
enjoined above, not without reason; where the will, 
where the Ego in general enters, there is nature- 
power wholly at an end. Through it [nature power'] 
neither A nor -A is possible. Through it nothing at all 
is possible; for its last product is an impulse and it 
has no causality. Therefore not to a nature-power 
but to the will which is absolutely opposed to it, are 
A and -A equally possible. Then, if it is claimed 
that the will is free, it is claimed that it is the first, 
the beginning member of a series, therefore it is de- 
termined through nothing else, consequently nature 
could not be the ground of its determination, as I 
have shown also from nature itself; therefore, that 
the determination of the will has no ground outside 
of itself. It is claimed further that the will does 
not, as a mechanical power, do all that it can ; but 
it consists in a faculty to limit itself through itself 
in a definite way; and that therefore, if the whole 
sphere were A -A, it is within its power to deter- 
mine itself to the first part or to the last, without 
any ground lying outside itself." ^ 

It is clear that by the issuing of a being from a 
willing, Fichte means the absolute creation of a new 
natural series through acts of thinking. The willing 
as first cause starts a new series of necessary causes 
in the objective world. For Fichte, then, the free- 
dom of an intelligence, as distinguished from the 



1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 160 ; see also pp. 134-5, 139, 182. 
6 



68 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte's Philosophy, 

necessity of a mere thing, consists first in the fac- 
ulty of absolute choice between two or more alter- 
native courses of action present in idea before the 
mind, and, secondly, in the power to realize objec- 
tively such chosen represented action through the 
absolute power of the will as first cause. 

So firm is he in his conviction, that he makes the 
free activity of the Ego in the practical sphere the 
fundamental fact to which the whole sphere of the- 
oretical philosophy must be subject. The most fun- 
damental fact in all theoretical philosophy is the 
activity of the self, by virtue of which alone, the 
self becomes an intelligence and knowledge is possi- 
ble at all. But this activity of the self is even more 
apparently fundamental in the practical sphere than 
in the theoretical. Hence the subordination of the 
latter to the former. The distinguishing character- 
istic of the intelligence as such is the faculty of free 
activity, the highest manifestation of which is not 
in mere knowing (^Denken), but in willing (^Wollen)^ 
that is, in the creation of something that may be 
known. 

"In order to be able to go out from itself, the 
Ego must be posited as overcoming the opposition. 
And so there is here again claimed, only in a higher 
meaning, the primacy of the reason in so far as it is 
practical. Every thing proceeds from activity, and 
from the activity of the Ego. The Ego is the first 
principle of all motion, all life, all action and occur- 
rence. If the Non-Ego works upon us, it happens 



Freedom in the Sittenlehre of 1812. 69 

not at our command but at its own ; it works through 
opposition which would not be if we had not first 
worked upon it. It does not apprehend (angreifen) 
us, but we apprehend it."^ "All theoretical laws are 
grounded upon practical laws," and the fundamental 
principle in practical philosophy is, consequently, 
the fundamental principle of all philosophy. 

We have thus far based our discussion of the 
ethical question upon the Sittenlehre of 1798 princi- 
pally, but the exposition will not be complete with- 
out an examination of the Sittenlehre of 1812. The 
latter was certainly written from a different point of 
view from that of the former. The two treatises 
have sometimes been compared and their differences 
cited, to show that Fichte's later philosophy is radi- 
cally different from his earlier. The point of view 
and the meaning of the terminology common to the 
two works, are certainly very different, but if due 
regard be had for these differences, we believe the 
two treatises will be found to be in substantial agree- 
ment so far as the doctrine of freedom is concerned. 

The Sittenlehre of 1798 was written from a psy- 
chological standpoint, and it contains an exceedingly 
keen analysis of consciousness. The treatise of 1812 
was written from a metaphysical point of view, and 
the author is concerned in it to treat the fundamen- 
tal problems of ethics in their relation to a doctrine 
of being. Indeed, he says that "what has formerly 
been called Sittenlehre has been changed into Seins- 



1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 93 ; see also p. 172. 



70 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fidite's Philosophy, 

lehre; (into the doctrine of true being, of reality 
proper)." 1 

In the earlier work, the Ego is the all-important 
thing, and the purpose-concept with the correspond- 
ing action is the product of the Ego's activity; in 
the later treatise the pure or absolute concept is the 
primary element, and it gives rise to the external 
world and to the Ego which, as ''true Ego," serves 
as the expression of the pure or absolute concept, 
and brings to consciousness the objective concept. 

In the earlier work the concept presupposes the 
Ego, and is the product of its activity ; in the later 
one, the concept is the ground which, by a process of 
self-determination, yields both the Ego and the 
world.^ It is the absolute Ego of the Wissenschafts- 
lehre^ and is the embodiment of rational will, with 
the power of .creating or becoming that which, as 
rationality, it sees. 

In the Sittenlehre of 1798 Pichte says that ''the 
concept of freedom rests upon the fact that I ascribe 
to myself the power of realizing X or -X; therefore 
that I can unite these contradictory determinations 
as contradictory, in one and the same thinking."^ 
In the later work he emphasizes the thought that 
"freedom is only the causality of the concept,"^ 
though at times he seems to admit the possibility of 
an act of will that does not realize the pure concept.^ 



1 Sittenlehre of 1812, Werke XI., 34. 
2Ibid, WerkeXI., 10. 

3 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 82. 

4 Sittenlehre of 1812, Werke XL, 20. 
5 Ibid, Werke XL, 36, 37, 66. 



Freedom in the Sittenlelire of 1812. 71 

A more careful consideration of the use of these 
three terms, — concept, Ego, and freedom, — is re- 
quired, in order that we may understand the position 
taken in the Sittenlehre of 1812. 

There are two kinds of concepts clearlj^ distin- 
guished. The one is spoken of as 'pure,' the other 
as 'objective.' The former is the metaphysical ulti- 
mate, the ground of the world and of all reality; 
the latter is the psychological notion present to the 
individual consciousness. ''The concept is ground 
of the world or of reality. World or realit}^ here 
means the object of a picture, or of a something 
represented in a picture, which shows itself in con- 
sciousness as the picture of the thing represented, 
and therefore as not existing if the thing represented 
does not exist. The thing represented, on the con- 
trary, is regarded as being able to exist without this 
picture. Therefore the world or being, means the 
object of a picture that is not pure.''^ "We have 
therefore two pictures of all concepts, the independ- 
ent and pure, and the objective, the copy or image." ^ 
"The pure concept becomes ground of the objective 
concept in consciousness. The concept in one sense 
becomes ground of itself in another sense." ^ In 
other words, the concept as metaphysical ultimate, 
creates the world of matter on the one hand and the 
world of individual consciousness on the other; and 
the world of matter, acting on the senses, produces 

1 Sittenlehre of 1812, Werke XI., 5. 
2Ibid, WerkeXI.,6. 
sibid, WerkeXI.,6. 



72 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy. 

sensations, notions, 'concepts,' in the consciousness 
of the individuaL This latter use of the term, 'con- 
cept,' corresponds in general to its use in the Sitten- 
lehre of 1798. 

The word 'Ego' is used in two senses also, 
though its use as 'true Ego' (das wahrhafte Ich), is 
by far the most frequent and most important. " The 
Ego is the life of the absolute concept, the true Ego 
must, therefore, appear only as such throughout and 
as nothing else than the objectified concept repre- 
sented in an existence ; or, as the Bible expresses it, 
the Word becomes flesh." ^ ''The Ego ought; its 
essence is this ought, nothing more throughout; it is 
nothing else than just this life of the concept. It is 
therefore exhaustively determined through the con- 
cept, through which it is created. The concept is 
therefore author and creator of the Ego in its entire 
significance. >!< >I< >!< ^ The Ego, however, should 
create (perhaps also can only create) according to 
the concept." 2 The second notion of the Ego is 
indicated by the following statements: "We say the 
true Ego must appear so and so. It is presupposed 
therefore as the connecting point of the contrary, 
that the Ego is also able to appear not so, and yet to 
appear; still it is posited at the same time that this 
last is not the true Ego, but only an empty and idle 
image of it. Immorality is therefore, in such a doc- 
trine, the true and pure nothing."^ "Therefore the 

1 Sittenlehre of 1812, Werke XI., 36. 
2IMd, WerkeXL, 28. 
3Ibid, WerkeXL, 36. 



Freedom in the Sittenlehre 0/ 1812. 73 

true Ego must appear only as life of the concept. 
An Ego in whose consciousness any other principle 
than the absolute concept should appear, would, in 
so far, not be a true Ego, but the mere semblance of 
it. But that such another principle can appear in 
consciousness, is surely posited through the visibility 
of the pure life, by means of the principle of con- 
tradiction." ^ That is, the Ego, the individual self, 
can act without expressing the life of the pure con- 
cept, without obeying the moral law; but such ac- 
tion is accompanied by the loss of its true dignity as 
the expression of the life of the pure or absolute con- 
cept, and hence it ceases to be Ego in the better sense. 

The notion of freedom is logically consistent with 
the notions of the pure concept and the true Ego. 
'^ Freedom is only causality of the concept.'"^ " Free- 
dom is properly the absolute transition from the 
pure imaginary form into the objective form within 
consciousness."^ ''Freedom, self-determination, and 
willing are indeed only the transition from ideality 
to reality."* To say that the Ego is free, is to say 
that it has the power to realize or not to realize 
objectively, the pure concept, the should {das Soil), 
the ought. 

With this new use of old terms in mind, let us 
proceed to Fichte's discussion of freedom in the sec- 
ond ethical treatise. 



1 Sittenlehre of 1812, Werke XI., 37. 
2Ibid, WerkeXI.,20. 
3 Ibid, Werke XI., 29. 
^Ibid, WerkeXI., 27. 



74 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte's Philosophy, 

The first Sittenlehre wsiS defined as ^Hhe theory 
of the consciousness of our moral nature in general 
and of our definite duties in particular." The Sit- 
tenlehre of 1812 assumes at the beginning a principle 
deduced by the Wissenschaftslehre^ viz., that ^Hhe 
concept is the ground of the world, with the absolute 
consciousness that it is so. * * * ^ The concept 
in opposition to the world, is a mere image, to which 
nothing corresponds and which, as a something to 
which nothing corresponds, presents itself to con- 
sciousness. Therefore, to this in the concept, to this 
absolutely figurative, we look here in the concept. 
Concept means for us, therefore, a pure, self-depend- 
ent being, not a copy or imitation, but an absolutely 
first, not a second." ^ ''The concept is the ground of 
being; being becomes, is absolutely created through 
the concept. All being is created through the con- 
cept, there is no being except through it. In the 
Sittenlehre, therefore, the world of the concept, of 
the spirit, is the first, the only true world. That of 
being, on the contrary, is only the second, first exist- 
ing through that of the spirit. The Sittenlehre must 
therefore claim a pure world of spirit and proceed 
from this as the only true one. Ethical and moral 
just mean spiritual and in the spirit. He who does 
not grant this at the first, for him the word moralitj^ 
has no meaning." ^ Our present task is the analysis 
of a consciousness in which the concept directly in- 



1 Sittenlehre of 1812, Werke XI., 1. 
2n)id,WerkeXI., 6. 



Freedom in the Sittenlehre of 1812. 75 

tuits itself as causality or ground of being. '' The 
concept intuits itself as causality (Grundseiend), 
means, it sees itself as passing over from inactivity 
and unreality to reality."^ ''Absolute identity of 
seeing and life is the Ego ; therefore the life of the 
concept for causality, takes on in consciousness the 
Ego-form necessarily, and it changes itself in causal- 
ity into such." 2 u tj^^ synthesis of the concept with 
that of absolute self-determination as a fact, is called 
an act of will; the faculty of absolute self-determin- 
ation with reference to a concept is called will or 
the faculty of will in general. The Ego therefore 
can will."^ "It has become completely clear that 
the Ego with its ideal life and its real objective 
power, is nothing but the life of the concept in 
which it is grounded. It is not something in itself 
and a life of its own, but it is only the life and power 
of this concept. >i< >i^ >K The Ego, therefore, con- 
sidered as free and self-dependent, — it is this, how- 
ever, only as power of self-determination, — is there 
only to procure for the concept its causality; and 
this is solely its vocation, the purpose of its being; 
therefore it should will."* "The Ego is just entirely 
the expression and agent of the concept, to procure 
for it what it, as ideal, is not able to secure."^ 

"Therefore the described Ego can will and it is 
free to will or not. One may call this freedom of 



1 Sittenlehre of 1812, Werke XI., 10. 
2Ibid, WerkeXI.,17. 
3Ibid, Werke XL, 19-20. 
4Ibid, WerkeXL, 22. 
5 Ibid, Werke XI., 23. 



76 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte's Philosophy, 

the will, only it must be rightly understood ; the Ego 
is not free to have the concept or not to have it, for 
it has it through its mere existence, and the Ego is 
merely the ideal life of the concept. But still it is 
free, that is, it depends upon its absolute self-deter- 
mination within its already given being, to determine 
itself to becoming causality. The addition of this 
self-determination is willing; it is therefore free, in 
general, to will or not; its being is indifferent with 
respect to the act of will, and there is involved in it 
neither that there is will nor that there is not. It 
does not will, means, it remains in a condition of 
mere ideal observation and construction; and this it 
can do. 

''But by no means does the proposition mean 
that the will is qualitatively free, to will in general 
this or that. For, first, will and freedom are only 
the transition from the ideal to the real, therefore 
from the condition of the concept to the realization 
of the same. Freedom is only causality of the con- 
cept, a principle which clearly has not been well 
comprehended heretofore, as Kant has already well 
shown. Secondly, that the will is qualitatively free, 
must therefore mean, that there lie before it several 
concepts whose ground it can be, choosing freely 
among them. But this is, according to our presup- 
position, impossible; since there is given a definite 
concept and nothing besides it, and of this definite 
concept it is the ground or it is not. If it is not, 
then it is in general not ground and in general it 



Freedom in the Sittenlehre of 1812. • 77 

does not will. It avoids a multitude of confusions 
to obtain this notion of the much discussed freedom 
of the will. 

" We abstract here wholly from the sphere of the 
empirical, that is, from an objective being not pro- 
duced through freedom. The Ego is for us through- 
out only the vigorous imaging life of the pure con- 
cept, and we know no other Ego; (and how well we 
have done therein for the purity and comprehensi- 
bility of our science in taking this course, will be 
shown further). He who confuses the empirical here 
and in the doctrine of the will, will say perhaps that 
there are two concepts in the case of an act of will, 
the pure, and that which the nature impulse gives. 
Accordingly, the self-determination is free to follow 
the one or the other; and so the will is also qualita- 
tively free, there is freedom of choice between the 
selfish and the unselfish impulses, as they call all 
this in a highly perverse way. To which I answer 
that this only escapes them, how in the empirical 
sphere and under the rule of impulse, there is no 
willing and no freedom and no self-determination, 
but a mere determinability through the factual law; 
that therefore the whole pretence is, in principle, noth- 
ing; and there remains the claim presented by us.''^ 

This direct denial of qualitative freedom seems 
to contradict the statement of the earlier treatise 
that the Ego has the power of choosing between 
concepts. But a careful study of this declaration, 



1 Sittenlehre of 1812. werke XI., 20-21 ; see also Werke XI., 49. 



78 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy, 

with due regard for the new use of terms, shows no 
contradiction. 

The concept is the primitive ultimate, the embodi- 
ment of rationality and will, the Absolute Ego of 
the earlier treatise, which comes to consciousness in 
individuals; it is the pure activity, the ought (das 
SoUen) of the Absolute. The Ego as ^ true Ego ' is 
nothing but the life of the concept. It is the mani- 
festation of the pure activity, of the ought of the 
Absolute. It is Ego by virtue of the fact that it is 
the embodiment of rationality and will, and it is 
Hrue Ego' only in so far as it acts rationally, that 
is, in accordance with the moral law. Freedom is 
only causality of the concej)t, the transition from 
the ideal to the real, therefore from the condition of 
a mere concept to the realization of it. 

This use of old terms with a new meaning is ex- 
ceedingly confusing, and it is the source of much of 
the misunderstanding of Fichte's philosophy. But 
nevertheless, if we accept in good faith the new use 
of terms, and also have regard for the changed point 
of view, the position taken is not inconsistent with 
that of the earlier writings. If the Ego, — the Hrue 
Ego ' is evidently meant, — exists only by virtue of 
its rationality, that is, as expression of the concept, 
and this rationality constitutes the moral law, then 
of course, the will can not be qualitatively free, that 
is, have the power to choose between several con- 
cepts; for, in a given case, reason as 'ought' can 
present not several concepts (which would be con- 



Freedom in the Sittenlehre of 1812. 79 

tradictory), but only one. Hence the only power of 
choice left is that between realizing and not realizing 
the one concept necessarily present ; and this, Fichte 
grants. One is prone to wonder at this point, how- 
ever, how such an Ego as has been described, could 
remain inactive in the presence of duty, (that is, 
with the one concept necessarily present), and still 
retain its dignity as Ego. But when we remember 
that Fichte is discussing the concept as ground of 
the world, that is, as a metaphysical ultimate, rather 
than the morality of the individual, the importance 
of the question for Fichte seems not so great. With 
such a definition of the Ego as he here gives, that 
is, as life of the pure concept, certainly no one would 
claim for it more freedom than he grants, that is, the 
power to realize or not to realize the concept of duty 
necessarily present to it; but one feels that the con- 
ception of the Ego is at fault. However, the denial 
of 'qualitative' freedom to the Ego considered as 
life of the absolute concept, does not necessarily 
imply the denial of ' qualitative ' freedom to the Ego 
which includes all conscious life. The whole discus- 
sion is brought within much narrower compass than 
that of the earlier treatise, and, while it cannot be said 
to contradict the latter, it adds nothing of importance. 
The doctrine of freedom as given in the Sitten- 
lehre of 1812 may be summarized as follows. The 
pure or absolute concept is the ground of all reality. 
The Ego is Ego onlj'- in so far as it is the life of 
the absolute concept. A concept appears in con- 



80 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte's Philosophy, 

sciousness, we know not how, as an ideal which 
^ ought' to be realized, that is, it appears as the 
moral law. To the Ego as ' true Ego ' no other con- 
cept can be present, for this one is the manifestation 
of the life of the absolute concept, hence the Ego is 
not free to choose between several concepts, but only 
to choose whether it will or will not realize the one 
actually present. In so far the will is free; for free- 
dom is just the transition from ideality to reality, 
from the concept to being. The prevailing purpose of 
the treatise is to show that the spiritual world as em- 
bodied in the concept, is the first, original, and only 
true world, and from it the objective world originates. 

For the Ego as ^pure Ego' there is no qualitative 
freedom, that is, no power of choice in the realiza- 
tion of concepts, since only one concept can be pres- 
ent. The Ego may choose to act contrary to the 
pure concept, but in so doing, it ceases to be pure 
Ego and passes at once beyond the sphere of the 
current discussion. But the possibility of so choos- 
ing is itself the assurance of freedom as the power of 
possible choice between two or more courses of action. 

We take leave of the Sittenlehre 0/ 1812 with the 
feeling that it adds nothing of importance to the 
doctrine of freedom, as discussed in the Sittenlehre of 
1798. The latter treatise constitutes a metaphysic 
of ethics rather than a systematic treatment of the 
science of ethics. Its purpose seems to be to con- 
struct an ethic upon a given metaphysic, with the 
emphasis on the latter. 



PART II.— CRITICISM. 



THE DOCTRINE EXAMINED. 

We have thus far attempted to give little more 
than a faithful exposition of Fichte's doctrine of 
freedom. It remains for us to examine the theory 
critically that we may reach some conclusion as to 
its consistency and its validity. 

We must face at the outset the question whether 
Fichte really intended to advocate the freedom of 
the individual as such. Freedom he certainly does 
believe in and that most earnestly, but whether it is 
the freedom of the individual, or only that of the 
Absolute in the super-actual choice of coming to 
consciousness, is the question. Taking his philoso- 
phy as a whole, his discussion of the subject is 
seriously confusing. Many statements may be found 
in which he unequivocally affirms the freedom of 
the individual, while perhaps an equal number could 
be found in which he as plainly denies the same. 
The explanation of the apparent contradiction lies 
partly in the equivocal use of terms, and partly in 
the fact that he writes now from one point of view 
and now from another. It would be much easier to 
convict him of obscurity in the discussion, than of 
contradiction in the positions taken. 

(81) 



82 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy, 

The Ego as Absolute Ego is undoubtedly free in 
the super-actual choice of coming to consciousness. 
On this point there can be no difference of opinion. 
The individual Ego, regarded as soul and body 
united, is partly free and partly not free, freedom be- 
longing to the soul in so far as it controls the im- 
pulses and actions of the body, and necessity belong- 
ing to the body in so far as it is the creature of 
natural impulse. The individual Ego, as including 
all conscious volition, the finite Ego of the Wissen- 
schaftslehre of 1798, is certainly affirmed to be free 
to choose between the various concepts presented to 
it for realization, either by itself or through the 
senses and impulses. The individual Ego as the life 
of the pure concept, that is, the Ego after abstrac- 
tion has been made of all empirical experience, the 
true Ego of the Sittenlehre of 1812, is affirmed to be 
free to realize or not to realize the concept present 
to it, the only concept that can appear. But such 
an Ego is not the cpmmon, sinful Ego of every day 
life, rather is it the personification of the moral 
ideal. Such an Egohood is an embodiment of the 
ideally perfect human life, and of the highest human 
freedom. Of all these Egos there is asserted a free- 
dom that is consistent with the point of view from 
which the assertion is made. The denial of freedom 
to the Ego, looked at from one point of view, does 
not mean its denial when regarded from another 
standpoint. Neither is the negation of the power of 
the Ego to become moral, that is, to pass from a non- 



The Idea of Freedom, 83 

moral state to a state of morality, to be interpreted 
as a denial of freedom. The Ego is rational or moral 
by virtue of its mere existence. To say that it can 
not become moral without being born of the Abso- 
lute Ego or the pure concept, is no more than to say 
that non-Egohood can not become Egohood except 
God first breathe into it the breath of life. The 
declaration that the Ego can not become moral, does 
not mean that the Ego cannot pass from a less to a 
greater degree of morality. It only signifies that 
morality cannot be born of non-morality. The 
individual Ego is free, not to become a moral being, 
it is that by virtue of its existence ; but it is free to 
choose the part that shall dignify or degrade its 
character as a moral being. 

It will be remembered that Fichte's notion of 
freedom contains two essential elements, viz.: the 
power of free self-determination and the power of 
absolutely beginning a new series of nature causes. 
We are to examine the conception a little more care- 
fully. 

By free self-determination Fichte means espec- 
ially the control of the objective Ego, that is, the 
physical world, by a power which is not subject to 
the law of necessary mechanical causality, or, in 
other words, the initiation of bodily movements by 
a power which is not physical and hence not sub- 
ject to mechanical laws. The nature of the action 
of the objective self is freely determined by the sub- 
jective self. As stated on a preceding page, he does 

7 



84 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy, 

not concern himself at length with the determina- 
tion of the self as thought and feeling, except in so 
far as these result in action, although he distinctly 
says that the "■ system of our ideas is dependent upon 
our impulse and our willing." i His problem is to 
show "how the objective follows from the subjec- 
tive," 'objective' meaning the material realization 
of that which as 'subjective' exists only in idea. 
Self-determination, then, is objective activity de- 
termined by subjective activity in the form of a 
mere idea, and free self-determination is objective 
activity determined and initiated by a mere idea 
which the Ego freely makes into a purpose-concept 
and then executes. One, or more than one, idea of 
possible action may be present to the Ego, and any 
one or none of them may become a purpose-concept. 
These ideas exist not as purpose-concepts at all, 
but only as cognitive concepts of possible action, 
until the self, by the power of its own free choice, 
unites itself with one of them to make it real in the 
objective world. This is the very essence of intel- 
ligent individual freedom, so far as self-determina- 
tion is concerned. 

And when we turn to the question of the abso- 
lute beginning of a new series of natural causes, we 
find the analysis equally keen. The physical body 
is within the sphere of being (Sein); and bodily ac- 
tivity, however initiated, is from this point on, with- 
in a series of natural causes. But, if bodily activity 



1 Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaf tslehre, Werke I., 295. 



Psychological Considerations. 85 

results from something that is not a natural cause, 
then in this activity we have the beginning of a new 
series of natural causes. Now, such activity does 
result from that which is not material at all, and not 
a natural cause, that is, from a mere idea. Nay, 
more, objective activity is but the actual realization 
of what was outlined in the idea which we regard 
as its cause. Hence, we have in this idea-iiiitiated 
bodily activity, the beginning of a new series of nat- 
ural causes. Fichte's picture of freedom is sharply 
drawn. 

The concept of freedom, as given in the Sitten- 
lehre of 1812, includes the thought of the absolute 
beginning of a new series of natural causes, in the 
same way as the one just considered, but the power 
of free self-determination is more limited. The lat- 
ter is reduced to the power of choice between the 
realization and the non-realization of the concept 
necessarily present to it. Such an ideal does not 
satisfy the ordinary common -sense inquiry as to the 
freedom of the individual ; for the common man 
wants to know not merely whether he is free to do 
or not to do the recognized right thing, but whether 
he can do any one of a dozen recognized wrong 
acts. Nevertheless, Fichte's conception is consis- 
tent with the notion of the Ego of which such free- 
dom is asserted. 

The psychological phase of the doctrine clearly 
centers around the discussion of consciousness as 
essentially active. The intuition of a subjective ac- 



86 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy, 

tivity that is in no way sensible, is the empirical 
starting-point of his whole philosophy. Concerning 
the fact and the nature of this activity, it is useless 
to speak to one who does not find it within himself. 
He who does not experience it, will find the transcen- 
dental philosophy a closed book, for he has not taken 
the first step to its understanding. The conscious- 
ness of this internal activity is a necessary require- 
ment for self-consciousness. " I find myself only as 
willing." And this activity or willing is the activity 
alike of the knowing and of the willing conscious- 
ness. In the knowing of external, material objects, 
that is, in the consciousness that is accompanied by 
the feeling of necessity, the activity of the self is 
determined, and it is not so marked as in the more 
active willing consciousness, but there is activity 
present, nevertheless, and in all self-conscious states 
we know it directly. It is the essence of all con- 
sciousness. Thus vigorously and forcibly does Fichte 
promulgate the doctrine of the Ego as essentially 
active, rather than as something passive which is 
totally moulded by external ideas and impressions. 

Fichte discusses the nature of the Ego from sev- 
eral different points of view, but its activity is al- 
ways the fundamental characteristic. He does not 
believe in an Ego-in-itself apart from all conscious- 
ness. ^'That the thinking of an existing self is 
grounded upon our laws of thought, and that, ac- 
cordingly, the essence of the Ego for the Ego, in no 
way the essence of the same in itself as thing-in- 



Psychological Considerations. 87 

itself, is sought, is presupposed from a knowledge of 
the transcendental philosophy." ^ He also speaks of 
thinking and willing as the only conscious manifes- 
tations of the supposed self-substance. He nowhere 
tells us, however, that this hypostatised self-sub- 
stance is real, but only that we so think it. Else- 
where, he says, in pointing out the essence of the 
self, 'Hhe intelligence is for Idealism an acting 
{Thun) and absolutely nothing else. One should 
never call it an active (^Thatiges), because by this 
expression is meant something existing in which ac- 
tivity dwells. But Idealism has no ground to sup- 
pose something thus, since it does not lie in its prin- 
ciple and all else is first to be deduced."^ But this 
activity is a constant, and is present to a greater or 
less degree in every conscious state, and it is the 
sine qua nan of the Ego. 

Neither does he resolve the Ego into a phenom- 
enal series of mental states, or a mere stream of 
thought. In one short sentence he identifies the 
self with its activities, and at the same time asserts 
that the individual states belong to the self. " My 
thinking and my acting belong to me, and they are 
the Ego itself." ^ If thinking and acting, which are, 
of course, identical with the activity of the self, 
' belong ' to the self, then we must infer the exis- 
tence of a self which, if not different from its con- 
scious states, is at least more than they. The same 

1 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 28. 

2 Erste Einleitung, Werke I., 440. 

3 Sittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 107. 



88 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy, 

position is indicated in his discussion of nature im- 
pulse and pure impulse. The Ego acting as thought 
decides whether the freeing of a nature impulse will 
be in harmony with the law of its own self-depen- 
dence. The Ego as will frees the impulse or inhibits 
it. In both cases there is activity, now as thought, 
now as will, but it is always the activity of the 
Ego. The Ego is its states, is in them all and yet 
it is more than they. It is the subject which has 
them as object. It observes them, unifies them, and 
compares them. 

The discussion oi the power of choice in the 
presence of two motives lends further support to this 
view of the self as something more than its states. 
Among several possible pleasures, ^'I choose the sat- 
isfaction of one need. I choose with complete free- 
dom of will, for I choose with the consciousness of 
self-determination, but I do not by any means sacri- 
fice enjoyment to morality, I only sacrifice it to an- 
other enjoyment. But, you say, you still give in, 
then, to the stronger impulse present in you. Yes, 
if that were universally true ; but this impulse would 
not be, would not have come to conciousness, if I 
had not held myself in check, deferred decision, and 
reflected with freedom upon the whole of my im- 
pulse. Accordingly I have, under this presupposition, 
conditioned the object of my willing through self- 
determination, and my will remains materially 
free."i There is here implied the presence of an 

iSittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV.; 162. 



Psychological Considerations, 89 

Ego that restrains its own action, defers decision, 
and reflects upon its impulses, a self that is more 
than the states which it possesses. 

Nor is the Ego the power to act wholly without 
motive, the power to become anything in the world 
which fancy may dictate. The activity of the Ego, 
although not ^ determined,' is nevertheless ' condi- 
tioned' by external circumstances. This conditioning 
is found alike in the formation of purpose-concepts 
and in the material realization of them. Ideas of pos- 
sible actions are conditioned by circumstances now 
present, and by the past experience of the individual 
as stored up in memory and habit ; and the realization 
of purpose concepts is always under the limitation 
of time, space, force, &c. But within the limits of 
these conditions there are many possible modes of 
procedure, and the self ' determines ' itself therein. 
It is conditioned but not determined by external cir- 
cumstances. 

The same independence of the self is indicated 
in Eichte's discussion of material, as distinct from 
formal, freedom. In the latter, the self as distin- 
guished from nature, acts to free the impulse which 
nature would free if she had the power. " A new 
formal principle, a new power enters, without 
changing in the least the material in the series of 
effects. Nature does not now act but the free being ; 
but the latter accomplishes just that which the 
former would have accomplished if it could act." In 
material freedom the self acts contrary to the nature 



90 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy, 

impulse. ^' [Material] freedom consists in the fact 
that not only a new power enters, but also a wholly 
new series of acts with reference to their content. 
Not only does the intelligence act from now on, but 
it acts in a wholly diflPerent way from that in which 
nature would have acted." ^ There is here implied 
a recognition of the self as intelligence, as a free 
being, as something different from its states, and 
with the power of initiating an entirely new series 
of states. It not merely is its states, but it has them, 
and in a certain sense it creates them. 

So far as his psychology is concerned, Pichte has 
a logical basis for his doctrine of freedom. The Ego 
is activity, this and nothing more. It manifests 
itself now as thought, now as will. We are prone 
to think of the self as a substance in which this 
activity of thinking and willing dwells. But belief 
in the existence of such a substance can only be an 
inference based upon analogy with the material 
world. In the realm of physical objects we can not 
think of activity without thinking of a thing that is 
active. But in the world of mind we have no ground 
upon which to make such inference. In all con- 
scious states we are directly conscious of the self as 
a permanent, persisting activity, and beyond this we 
cannot go. It is not something apart from conscious 
states, nor is it merely the states themselves as such, 
but it is activity manifesting itself in all of them, and 
binding them together into a unity. Within limits, 



iSittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 139. 



Metaphysical Considerations. 91 

the Ego controls the stream of ideas and through 
them, actions. The Ego is personality. 

We turn next to a consideration of the metaphys- 
ical assumptions underlying Pichte's doctrine of 
freedom. His persistent claim that only a monistic 
theory can satisfy the demands of thought, that all 
philosophy must be founded on one fundamental 
principle to which everything can be reduced, may 
first challenge our attention. There can be no doubt 
that thought tends to simplify its materials, to re- 
duce all to unity so far as possible ; but it makes an 
equally imperative demand that any satisfactory sys- 
tem of thought, that is, a philosophy, must account 
for all the facts of consciousness. If, now, as the 
ultimate fact of consciousness, we find a persistent 
duality, thought and being, we may reject a monistic 
metaphysic on the ground that it does not explain 
the ultimate facts of consciousness, with at least as 
much assurance as Fichte shows in urging the neces- 
sary acceptance of the same, since only thus can 
thought's demand for unity be attained. Theories 
are valueless except as they explain facts, and so 
long as consciousness exists as the necessary union 
of subjective and objective, of thought and being, 
it may well be questioned whether the demand of 
thought for unity must not find its satisfaction in 
some other form than that of a monistic philosophy 
which would resolve either the objective into the 
subjective, or the subjective into the objective, or 



92 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichteh Philosophy, 

both into a third something, the very existence of 
which can never be known. 

In close connection with this point occurs the 
discussion of Dogmatism and Idealism, each of which 
theories claims to satisfy the demand of thought for 
a monistic system of philosophy. Pichte's reply to 
the claims of Dogmatism is conclusive. First, mere 
objectivity, being without consciousness of being, a 
world of being without consciousness, is an unthink- 
able conception, and it can never serve as an expla- 
nation of conscious experience. Secondly, at most, 
only more being can ever arise from mere being. 
Being and consciousness of being in one, can never 
issue therefrom, for consciousness belongs to a higher 
category than being. But his reduction of being, 
the objective in consciousness, to the subjective, does 
not seem to prevail with the same logical necessity. 
We may not be able to explain consciousness through 
being, the objective, but are we any more easily able 
to accomplish that feat by concluding that the ob- 
jective is, at bottom, not the objective at all, but only 
the subjective ? In the very act of thought by means 
of which we attempt to attain this end, we find the 
objective again making its unwelcome appearance. 
Like Banquo's ghost, it will not down. Only by an 
inference that contradicts the universal testimony of 
consciousness (beyond which Pichte very explicitly 
says we can not go except by abstraction), can we 
identify the objective with the subjective, and deny 
the ultimate existence of the former. One is com- 



Metaphysical Considerations. 93 

pelled to regard Fichte as more successful in refuting 
the pretensions of Dogmatism than in establishing 
the claims of his own theory. 

But even granting that the objective material 
world could be thus reduced to that which is imma- 
terial or spiritual, granting that the objective may 
be regarded as the unconscious creation of the sub- 
jective activity of the Ego, and hence as only the 
Ego in another form, there yet remains the very 
serious problem of so thinking such relations between 
the different parts or elements of this spirituality as 
to secure the freedom of both the individual and the 
Absolute. G-ranting that the objective material world 
is but the sphere for the manifestation of the activ- 
ity of the spiritual world, what is the relation of the 
finite, individual Ego to the Absolute Ego, of a man 
to G-od? This is the most troublesome question in 
the whole Fichtean philosophy, and it was so recog- 
nized by the philosopher himself. Having reduced 
the objective to the subjective, it is not easy for him 
to think clearly the relations between the individual 
and the Absolute, so as to make clear the freedom of 
both. The Ego is all in all, subjective and objective, 
creator and created, in one. But this can not be the 
empirical, individual, finite Ego such as the common 
man knows, for it is conscious of no such indepen- 
dence, no such dignity and power. On the contrary 
it is clearly conscious of limitation, of the objective 
as a ' given ' from which it can not escape without 
self-destruction. The Ego as finite is not the sum 



94 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy, 

total of reality, nor is it the creator of the objective 
world. Although this dignity must belong to some 
Ego, according to Fichte, it can not be the finite 
Ego, hence there must be an Absolute Ego to which 
it belongs, which includes both the finite Ego and 
the Non-Ego within itself, and of which the finite 
Ego in some way forms a part. This Absolute Ego 
in its purity as free, unrestrained activity, can never 
come into the empirical consciousness, but the latter 
must be thought as in some way identical with it. 
The Absolute Ego as pure activity has not yet con- 
sciousness, it is as yet nothing but absolute freedom, 
that is, the power to come to consciousness or to 
remain forever nothing. It chooses the former, and 
in coming to consciousness it sets part of its own 
unrestrained activity against itself, thus creating the 
Non-Ego, the objective world. At the same time 
the activity of the Ego as such, is manifested as the 
subjective activity of the finite consciousness. But 
the pure activity of the Absolute Ego in the act of 
creation, or in its purity before the act of creation, 
can never come into the finite consciousness. Its 
existence in this primary state of nothingness or 
pure activity, and its activity in the act of creation 
following, can only be inferred, or, as Fichte says, 
^ deduced.' 

It seems that several objections may be urged 
against this theory as a metaphysic that shall secure 
the freedom of the individual. First, and in general, 
the Absolute Ego as pure activity and in the free act 



Metaphysical Considerations, 95 

of creation of the objective world, is as far beyond 
the pale of common consciousness as the thing-in- 
itself, and it may just as plausibly be regarded as a 
figment of the imagination. Fichte says that " the 
object of every philosophy as ground of explanation 
of experience, must lie without experience."^ He 
relies upon his process of ' deduction ' to establish 
the correctness of his assumptions concerning the 
pre-conscious activity of the Absolute. But the pro- 
cedure described is so far different from any thing 
known in conscious experience, — indeed, it so far 
contradicts all possible experience, — that we can 
hardly regard it as more than a clever hypothesis, 
of the truth of which Fichte's labored deduction is 
but poor proof. 

A second, and for us a more vital point, is that 
which concerns the relation between the Absolute 
Ego and the finite Ego after the former has come to 
consciousness. If the Absolute Ego in the act of 
creation or ' coming to consciousness,' loses its own 
individuality, and has an existence thenceforward 
only in the Non-Ego and in the plurality of finite 
Egos, and if it possesses consciousness only in the 
latter, there may indeed be room for individual free- 
dom and personality, but it has been purchased at 
the cost of both the personality of the Absolute and 
the monistic system of thought. For, if individual 
personalities are the only forms of the consciousness 
of the Absolute, and they are supreme, then the 

1 Erste Einleitung, Werke I., 428. 



96 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte's Philosophy. 

Absolute has become nothing but an ideal unity of 
the Non-Ego and finite individual consciousnesses. 
And if the Absolute has thus disappeared in the Non- 
Ego and the plurality of finite Egos, our monism 
has turned itself back into a dualism, or rather, into 
a pluralism. If, on the other hand, the Absolute 
Ego is conceived as not losing itself in the finite 
Egos and the Non-Ego, but as coming to concious- 
ness only in the finite Egos, the latter being mere 
'points of consciousness' of the Absolute, it is diffi- 
cult to see how any place can remain for individual 
personality, without which there can be no individ- 
ual freedom. 

It is a recognition of the difficulties involved in 
this problem of the relation of the individual to the 
Absolute, and an attempt to solve the problem in 
such way as to secure on the one hand the freedom 
of the individual and the self-hood of the Absolute, 
and on the other a consistent monistic system of 
thought, that caused so many ambiguous, not to say 
contradictory, statements on this subject. 

It is in the more purely ethical arguments for 
freedom that Fichte appears at his best. Not merely 
the keenness and vigor of his intellect, but also the 
intensity of his moral nature are here manifest. 
The whole argument is based upon a belief in the 
essential dignity of man as something more than 
mere nature, upon the unconquerable conviction of 
all higher natures that man is active, freely active. 
Accepting the sense of moral obligation as an ulti- 



Ethical Considerations, 97 

mate given fact of consciousness, Kant had inferred 
the freedom of the individual as the postulate of 
morality. But he denied that freedom itself can be 
directly intuited. He only said that freedom must 
he because morality is. Fichte recognized the pres- 
ence of the categorical imperative, but he did not 
base his belief in freedom on that alone. Indeed, he 
did not accept the 'ought' as a mere 'given,' but 
set about 'deducing' it, and the starting point of 
the deduction is the intuited activity of the Ego. 
That the will appears as free and absolute, is un- 
doubtedly a fact of consciousness. But, on purely 
theoretical grounds, there is no reason why this ap- 
pearance might not possibly be explained, and ap- 
parent freedom explained away, just as in the sys- 
tem of Idealism the existence of definite things in 
space and time, things which appear as real to us, 
are further explained, and, in a sense, explained 
away. As a matter of fact, no one will ever be able 
to explain the freedom of the will from anything 
else. But it might still be claimed that it has some 
incomprehensible ground ; which claim, of course, 
can not be successfully refuted, although there is 
not the least proof of its validity. 

On purely theoretical grounds, then, the ulti- 
mate truth of this appearance of the will as free and 
absolute, can not be established in a manner that is 
convincing to all minds ; and, if we are to hold it as 
true, and accept it as the fundamental fact of all 
philosophy, the decision must be made on practical 



98 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy, 

rather than on theoretical grounds. '' I will be self- 
dependent, therefore, I regard myself so." ^ This is 
faith (Glaube), and so the final ground of belief in 
freedom is faith in man as active power, just as the 
final ground of belief in Dogmatism is faith in the 
thing-in-itself. ^'The proposition that I am free, 
that freedom is the only true being and the ground 
of all other being, is very different from the proposi- 
tion that I appear to myself as free. It is the belief 
in the objective validity of this appearance, that is 
to be derived from the consciousness of the moral 
law. I am free is the first article of faith that opens 
the way into the intelligible world and that first af- 
fords ground in it. * * ^ The Ego is not to be 
derived from the Non-Ego, life not from death, but, 
on the contrary, the Non -Ego from the Ego; and, 
therefore, all philosophy must start from the Ego."^ 
We do not regard it as wicked that the stronger 
animal should devour the weaker, for it seems nat- 
ural, within the order of nature. With man it is 
quite otherwise, for we find it impossible to regard 
him as a mere natural product. We are compelled 
to think of him as a free and transcendent being? 
raised beyond all nature. The fact that man is cap- 
able of vice, shows that he is determined to virtue. 
" But what would virtue be if it were not the ac- 
quired product of our own freedom, the rising into 
a wholly different order of things?"^ 

iSittenlehre of 1798, Werke IV., 26. 
2IMd, WerkeIV.,54. 
3Ibid, Werke IV., 204. 



Ethical Considerations. 99 

For Fichte, the decision between Idealism and 
Dogmatism is really the decision between freedom 
and necessity, and the question at issue is, whether 
the independence of the Ego is to be sacrificed to 
that of the thing, or vice versa. The philosopher is 
compelled to represent to himself both that he is free 
and that there are determined things outside of him. 
The representation of the independence of the Ego 
and that of the thing, can very well exist together, 
but not the independence itself of both. Only one 
of them can be independent, and the other must be 
secondary to it. From a purely theoretical stand- 
point there is no all-sufficient ground for decision 
between them, and since there must be a ground, if 
decision is made, it must consist of the difference of 
interest of those who choose. There are two chief 
classes of men. A member of the one class is accus- 
tomed to regard himself as the representation of the 
outside world, and so he can consider himself as sec- 
ondary to the world of objects. The other class is 
represented by the man who realizes his supremacy 
over the world of objects through his own efforts. 
Confidence in himself and his own activity destroys 
his confidence in the Non-Ego as ultimate ground of 
explanation of the world. He is inclined to look 
with contempt and ridicule upon his opponent who 
would find a ground principle in that which he him- 
self has overcome and cast aside as useless. ^' Hence 
the kind of philosophy a man has, depends upon the 
kind of man he is." ^ 



1 Erste Einleitung, Werke I., 434. 

8 



100 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichtes Philosophy. 

Of strikingly similar import are the words of a 
well-known ethical writer of the present day. '' The 
decision in favor of freedom is thus a kind of ' moral 
wager ' -^ ^ ^ ^ the odds seem to be on the side 
of morality and therefore the odds are taken. And 
probably the question is generally answered on some 
such grounds, though not so explicitly formulated. The 
philosopher is the man after all ; and the stress is 
laid on the one side of the question or the other, ac- 
cording to the temper of the individual. ^ >l< >l< 
While the ' intellectualists ' will, with Spinoza, ruth- 
lessly sacrifice freedom to completness and finality of 
speculative view, the 'moralists' will be content, 
with Kant and Lotze, to 'recognize this theoretically 
indemonstrable freedom as a postulate of the prac- 
tical reason.' The latter position, if it confessedly 
falls short of knowledge, is at any rate entitled to 
the name which it claims for itself, that of a rational 
faith ; it is a faith grounded in the moral or practical 
reason. Since man must live whether he can ever 
know how he live or not, freedom may well be ac- 
cepted as the postulate or axiom of human life. If 
moral experience implies freedom, or even the idea 
of freedom, as its condition ; if man is so constituted 
that he can act only under the idea of freedom ; or 
as if he were free, then the onus probandi surely lies 
with the determinist." ^ 

The fact that Dogmatism, that is, a system of 
necessity, cannot afford a satisfactory explanation 



1 James Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, page 352. 



Summary. 101 

of conscious life, together with the fact that men of 
strong, independent nature and moral sensibility, 
are compelled to represent themselves as free and 
independent beings, above nature and superior to it, 
— these two facts are for Fichte the practical reasons 
which commit him to the doctrine of individual free- 
dom and moral responsibility. They make possible 
a 'rational faith' in freedom even though they do 
not constitute absolute proof of its reality. Scarcely 
can the ethical argument be said to have passed be- 
yond this point at the present day. 

We began this paper with the statement that in 
the words ' unity ' and ' freedom ' is to be found 
the key to the entire Fichtean philosophy. The 
whole purpose of his life as a speculative thinker 
was to construct a monistic philosophy that should 
guarantee the moral freedom of the individual. 
His keen intellect demanded the one, his intense 
ethical nature called for the other. He had a su- 
preme faith in the power of thought to solve the 
problem of human experience. He also believed 
that the individual must be free. What success, we 
may now ask, in conclusion, attended his efforts? 

His conception of freedom is of the severest kind. 
It is the power of free self-determination, in which 
the only causality that is operative is a free causality. 
It is an ^ either — or ' determination, and that through 
the self. It refers to idea-initiated activity, and it 
involves the absolute beginning of a new series of 



102 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte^s Philosophy, 

natural causes, even though such a beginning may 
be inconceivable. 

His psychological analysis of the nature of the 
self is exceedingly keen. His conception of the self 
as essentially will, as necessarily active, as activity 
itself entering into all conscious states, is the most 
fruitful conception in modern psychology. He does 
not believe in the existence of an Bgo-in-itself, of a 
self apart from all conscious states ; nor would he, 
on the other hand, resolve the self into either dis- 
crete mental states or a stream of consciousness, 
Eather would he say that the self is the persistent 
activity which is in all conscious states, but which is 
more than they. In so far, then, his psychology pro- 
vides for a real individual self-hood, a personality, 
which is the only guarantee of individual freedom 
such as he describes. 

When we turn to the metaphysics of the system, 
the claims of absolute monism are strongly urged, 
and the case for freedom is not so satisfactory. Any 
theory, to be acceptable, must explain the facts in- 
volved, and, since thought and being are alike ulti- 
mates in conscious life, we may well question the 
validity of any system of monism that attempts to 
resolve the one into the other. His argument that 
since Dogmatism, (the validity of which he conclu- 
sively refutes,) can not be true, therefore, Idealism 
must be true, would be conclusive only on the as- 
sumption that Idealism and Dogmatism are the only 
alternatives, that a monistic philosophy must be pos- 



Summary. 103 

sible; but we have seen that there is good ground 
for doubting the validity of this assumption. The 
finite consciousness, of which alone we have any 
knowledge, contains never the subjective alone, but 
always both subject and object. 

But even granting the possibility of regarding 
the material world as the mere manifestation of the 
spiritual world, thus doing away with a belief in the 
former as an ultimate factor in the explanation of 
the universe, we find unsolved difficulties in the way 
of so thinking the relation between the individual 
and the Absolute, as to secure the freedom of the 
individual without sacrificing both the personality of 
the Absolute and the monism in the interests of 
which all our concessions have been made. The 
fiction of the Absolute Ego as nothing but pure 
activity, as nothing but freedom to come to con- 
sciousness in individual consciousnesses, or to remain 
forever ^nothing,' does not impress one with the 
dignity of such an Absolute, for it is avowedly un- 
conscious, merely nothing. Not even the logic of 
the ^ deduction ' is convincing in this matter. 

But granting again that this might be the origin 
of all conscious life, if the Absolute Ego, after com- 
ing to consciousness, has no further existence as 
Absolute Personality, but is resolved into the Non- 
Ego and the consciousnesses of individual Egos, we 
may have retained the personality and independence 
of individuals, and hence a metaphysical basis for a 
theory of individual freedom, but we have lost the 



104 The Doctrine of Freedom in Fichte's Philosophy, 

personality of the Absolute, and our monism has re- 
turned into a pluralism. If individual, finite con- 
sciousnesses are but points of consciousness for the 
Absolute which yet maintains its personality, if the 
individual does not think but only the Absolute 
through the individual, then the case for the free- 
dom of the individual in the sense of the freedom 
above described, must clearly be given up. Free- 
dom there may yet be, but it is the freedom of the 
Absolute and not that of the individual. The real- 
ity of individual freedom requires the reality of indi- 
vidual personality. The conception of individual 
personality as the only form in which consciouness 
exists, destroys the idea of Grod as personality, A 
thorough-going spiritualistic monism, such as Pichte 
designed his philosophy to be, would necessarily 
merge the personality of individuals into that of the 
Absolute, or the personality of the Absolute into 
that of individuals. Here we meet the final contra- 
diction between monism and freedom, and it is at 
this point that Fichte's doctrine of freedom may be 
said to be found wanting. Monism and freedom as 
he represents them, are contradictory. Fichte tried 
to hold to both. 

It is awowedly on ethical, or, as Fichte says, 
practical, grounds that he decides in favor of free- 
dom. The appearance of freedom in conciousness 
might conceivably be shown to be mere appearance. 
Disregarding ethical considerations, the reality of 
freedom corresponding to the appearance of it, can 



Summary. 105 

be neither proven nor disproven. The necessary 
consciousness of man that he has power over nature 
and over himself, that he is capable of vice and 
virtue, and conscious of opportunity and responsi- 
bility, that he has within himself the power to change 
the natural order of things, — this consciousness of 
his own peculiar dignity as man, is the deciding fac- 
tor in favor of freedom. It is not absolute demon- 
stration, but it gives ground for a rational faith in 
the reality of that freedom for which man as moral 
most earnestly longs. 



The Doctrine 



OF 



The Freedom of the Will 



IN 



FICHTE'S PHILOSOPHY. 



BY 
JOHN FRANKLIN BROWN, Ph. B. 



A Thesis presented to the Faculty of Cornell University 

for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy^ 

June, m6. 









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